By Katia Del Rivero

During this month we are exploring some childlike characteristics that, from our perspective, are fond memories and should bring them back to our adult life. The reason? They give us tools for the needs of the future.
We’ve explored two perspectives so far.
First, the childlike ability to ask yourself “How to make it different?” against the adult life “We’ve always done it this way.”
Second, we explored how adults have forgotten to build together and usually don’t want to collaborate more with those with whom we’ve had differences against children who no matter how many differences they may have, they try again because what’s important is to play.
The Right Way
These days I was reading an article with a story certain recruiters to choose a candidate.
The story goes like this: One night you are driving your car, you only have one seat available, it’s raining. You pass by a bus stop and you see your best friend, an old woman, and the love of your life. Who would you take with you?
There where many answers. Apparently the “correct one” goes like this “I would give my keys to my best friend so he could take the old lady, and I would stay at the bus stop with the love of my life waiting for the bus.” The right answer!
And I ask myself, right for whom? — obviously for the interviewer — From what perspective? Is it the only perspective? Are there other perspectives? What is “right”? Are there any unexplored subjects?
Most adults don’t ask ourselves these questions. We’ve built a world where “the value is in knowing the answer.” We award the “man/woman” who has it. We value the one who knows. We consider competent the one who answers questions fast. The one who affirms without a doubt.
And If We Change From Right to Functional?
When we talk about right we are making a value judgment from someone’s perspective. The right thing for one person may not be the same for someone else.
In the context of our history what seemed right to the interviewer, doesn’t seem right to me. Who am I to decide for others? Can I make a decision about what my friend will do? With whom will the old woman who I do not know go? Of what the person whom I consider “the love of my life” does not have the opportunity to ask himself if he wants to be?
It can also be that this “correct” perspective is only with the information that is assumed. What happens if the old woman is the mother of the “love of my life”? Would they be willing to separate? How do I know that my friend — whom I do not see long ago, the story said — is not with the person I assume is the love of my life? Maybe even the three of them know each other and are waiting for someone else to pick them up? From these other perspectives, perhaps the answer chosen as “correct” is not so right.
If we observe children, they do not think in terms of “right or wrong”, we could say that they think more in terms of “functional or non-functional”.
And the thing with the function is that it implicitly brings an extraordinary wonder — I think — and that something can only be functional when it is useful for what you want to achieve. And this, in children is crystal clear. If not, ask the mother who wants to get under the shelves of a supermarket when her three-year-old son falls to the floor and screams with all the strength of his lungs because he wants a sweet. Have you ever wondered why? Simple, it works. If not, they wouldn’t do it.
How do I know? Because other children do not use the same strategy, because they have simply learned in the framework of their homes that it would not work, so they use other strategies: ask for it, use their allowance, go to the consenting grandfather, not do it out of fear, etc.
Michael said that “the creativity of children to survive is practically infinite”, so they do everything they consider useful to survive.
Maybe you’re thinking that this is “not right”, how is it that a child who throws a tantrum on the supermarket is correct? Because the child does not think of right or wrong, thinks of useful or not useful for their survival. And he has learned what is useful because his family environment has co-constructed it in this way. So, if the child throws himself to the floor, he asks for it or he does not ask for it, it has been a co-construction process with the others.
A World of Possibilities
When you and I think in terms of correct, we close the alternatives to one. When you and I think in functional terms, we are open to many possibilities.
Perhaps you are questioning the ethical framework of this. The systemic approach does not have a framework of ethics, it is a descriptive, structural framework. We co-construct ethics ourselves. In the choice of what is agreed to be useful for the purpose to be built.
What are we trying to achieve? Who participates in the co-construction of this result? Where we are? What do we need? How are we going to do it? In what framework of behavior do we want to make these agreements? These are some useful questions to look at in a functional way, open possibilities and paradoxical as it may seem, they usually invite to build “correct” options for all.
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