When I was a child, my mother would sometimes comment that I was growing so fast she wanted to put a brick on my head to slow me down.  It was a joke, of course; her mother had said the same thing to her 25 years earlier.  While parents sometimes feel a twinge of regret as they see their youngsters spurt toward adulthood, they also recognize its inevitability. 

We expect a child to grow.  We are grateful for the evidence of health and vitality it affords.  And while we enjoy watching the growth of our children, we know that it is a natural process, and not our doing.  If we provide them with healthful food, opportunities to run and jump and swing and laugh, and a safe and loving environment, the growth will take care of itself.  We can’t hurry it along and we can’t slow it down. 

We can’t hurry it along.  No reasonable parent, wanting her child to be taller quicker, would hold his feet down and pull up on his arms in an effort to make his body longer.  A human being is not a piece of Silly Putty to be manipulated artificially.  All reasonable people know that our bodies are so complex that most interference with their natural functions causes harm, not improvement. 

And if you have interfered with a child’s normal growth process by refusing him healthful nutrition and a nurturing environment, there is no way you can make him appear to be as tall as he should be by viewing him from a different angle. 

We expect our economy to grow.  We know that steady growth is one of the signs of a healthy free-market system.  We expect our small business community to grow.  We know that growth in the number of jobs offered by small businesses and the number of dollars moved through the economy by small businesses are two of the indicators that our state and our towns are thriving – or not. 

Unfortunately, we haven’t yet learned that the economy and the small business community that it encompasses are every bit as natural a system as an organism or an ecosystem, and so complex that most interference with their natural functioning causes harm, not improvement.   

There are a substantial number of people out there who believe that it’s acceptable to deprive the economy of the nutrients that allow it to grow and thrive – property rights for individuals that encourage the establishment of small businesses; property rights for businesses that encourage additional investment in the community; the lowest taxes possible so there is more capital available to hire more workers; no more regulation than is absolutely necessary so that the time of small-business owners is freed up to grow their businesses rather than being spent on unnecessary and oppressive paperwork.   

Then, when these people are confronted with the stagnation produced by the deprivations they’ve imposed, they try artificial methods to make the economy appear better.  If your state is last in the nation in the growth of private-sector jobs, you can always claim that the proliferation of government jobs – which suck wealth out of the economy rather than enhancing the general prosperity – are an indicator of economic health. 

Just keep looking at that kid from different angles.  Eventually you’re bound to find one that will make him look taller than he really is. 

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Sharon DuBois is the president of Senior Ease (www.seniorease.com), as well as the editor of KsSmallBiz.com. Comments and responses may be emailed to This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .

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