"When you become a parent, or a teacher, you turn into a manager of this whole system. You become the person controlling the bubble of innocence around a child, regulating it"
About this Quote
Parenthood and teaching, Ishiguro suggests, aren’t just roles; they’re systems work. The phrase “manager of this whole system” drags caretaking out of the sentimental and into the bureaucratic: you’re suddenly running a small institution with policies, triage, risk assessments, and daily compromises. That managerial diction is the point. It’s slightly chilling, because it reveals how quickly “love” becomes logistics, and how power arrives disguised as responsibility.
The core image, “the bubble of innocence,” does double duty. It’s tender in the way we talk about childhood, but also fragile, artificial, and, crucially, manufactured. Bubbles don’t occur naturally; someone has to blow them, maintain them, decide what stays inside. Ishiguro’s verb choice - “controlling,” “regulating” - is where the subtext tightens. Innocence isn’t merely protected; it’s curated. Adults decide what a child is allowed to know, when they’re allowed to know it, and which truths are postponed for the sake of stability. Regulation implies both care and control, a soft form of censorship that can be benevolent or self-serving.
In Ishiguro’s fiction, the moral pressure often comes from people dutifully maintaining a story that makes life bearable until it becomes a trap. Read in that light, this quote isn’t anti-parent or anti-teacher; it’s a warning about the quiet seduction of gatekeeping. Once you’re tasked with keeping the bubble intact, you may start confusing the child’s well-being with the system’s smooth operation - and calling that virtue.
The core image, “the bubble of innocence,” does double duty. It’s tender in the way we talk about childhood, but also fragile, artificial, and, crucially, manufactured. Bubbles don’t occur naturally; someone has to blow them, maintain them, decide what stays inside. Ishiguro’s verb choice - “controlling,” “regulating” - is where the subtext tightens. Innocence isn’t merely protected; it’s curated. Adults decide what a child is allowed to know, when they’re allowed to know it, and which truths are postponed for the sake of stability. Regulation implies both care and control, a soft form of censorship that can be benevolent or self-serving.
In Ishiguro’s fiction, the moral pressure often comes from people dutifully maintaining a story that makes life bearable until it becomes a trap. Read in that light, this quote isn’t anti-parent or anti-teacher; it’s a warning about the quiet seduction of gatekeeping. Once you’re tasked with keeping the bubble intact, you may start confusing the child’s well-being with the system’s smooth operation - and calling that virtue.
Quote Details
| Topic | Parenting |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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