Tag Archives: myth

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Hubris

hubris. noun

[ hyoo-bris, hope-bris ]

excessive pride or self-confidence; arrogance.

There is little doubt that the second child in most cases, definitely in our case, is a daredevil. The second child thinks they are invincible. I’ve seen some pretty incredible things out of this little one. Some scary moments, some funny moments, but for the most part a lot of moments that just make me say, “hmm.”

“Let’s see how this plays out,” seems to be a pretty common quote in our house of late. Oliver thinks he can do just about anything. I’ve seen him lick anything he gets his hands on to claim it as his, Ive seen him take his close off and run around naked… in public… and I’ve seen him think he can jump from heights that would make Evel Knievel jealous.

But, just like anyone else… any human… any animal… anyone… HUBRIS is not something to mess around with. The Gods are less forgiving then ever these days… and they do not play favorites… not even to toddlers.

Oliver’s display of confidence today was the classic case of Hubris. Hubris as stated above refers to excessive pride or overconfidence, which drives a person to overstep limits in a way that leads to their downfall. In Greek mythology, the legend of Icarus involves an iconic case of hubris as he is given artificial wings made of wax in the hopes that he can fly. All he was asked to do was essentially to be careful and not fly to close to the sun as this would melt the wax and essentially cause him to fall to his death.

Icarus is given artificial wings made of wax and feathers so that he can fly (a superhuman feat), but he ignores his father’s warnings and flies too close to the sun, melting his wings and drowning in the ocean.

In the end, Hubris was the downfall of Icarus. Hopeful we can get some more supports in place for an overtly confident person such as Our second son. Oliver might not have ended falling from the sun… but he sure as hell has some confidence that is scary as hell for his parents.

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Hubris

Me after listening to eight hours of crying


I thought I had this parenting thing all figured a while back when Jackson hit a groove and was easing up on requiring parental services for every part of this life.  When the new guy came along we hit our stride pretty quickly and got a routine up and running the minute we were home from the hospital. For the first few weeks, the baby would sleep in the doc-a-tot thing or even in the Rock and play. I had no worries of long sleepless nights and knew once Oliver checked out A-OK for allergies this was going to be a piece of cake. 

I had False visions of a snoring little bundle of joy, peacefully dreaming while I watched his little face smiling back at me.  I’d be able to look over emails and complete teacher observation write-ups. I’d be able to binge watch on Netflix and get back to writing on a more consistent basis. Heck I’d even maybe up my to reading a more than two books a month. 

That was until I realized that my son was being possessed by Voldemort… before I came to the conclusion that he was housing a piece of Voldemort’s souls inside him… before I spent eight straight hours bouncing, walking, soothing, or rocking this evil little dark wizard from 9-5pm every night… before I heard the decibels of screaming that this child’s tiny voice box could produce… before I went three straight weeks with little to no sleep. 

And you know what… that’s my bad. I shouldn’t have been so cocky. I shouldn’t have counted my eggs before they hatched. I should have banked as much sleep as I could early on. And that’s what happens when you fly too close to the sun. Too much confidence will “melt the wax on your wings” and send you to a certain death. It happened to Icarus and its now happened to me.