The 'Indigo Children'

Everyone wants to think that their child is special. Maybe they are; maybe they aren’t. Statistically speaking, from what I’ve seen of the world, I’m going to have to guess that only one out of, say, the next four hundred children I meet will actually be special. But that’s not the point. If your child is special, I can absolutely guarantee you that he or she is not special because they are a so-called Indigo Child.

‘Indigo Child’ is a term concocted by Nancy Ann Tappe, a psychic who claimed to be able to see auras. Auras are metaphysical glows put off by a person’s psychic energy, and depending on their personality, can take on different colors. It should be noted that not everyone can see auras, and that those who can usually only do so in exchange for money. Your money.

Anyway, Tappe spent her life looking at people’s auras. Eventually, she started running into children the likes of which she had never seen before; the glows were of a dark blue color. Somehow she came to the conclusion that these children were the reincarnations of aliens, hierophants, priests, druids, and other new-age favorites.

There are about a dozen different indicators that you or your child may be an indigo child. These include having trouble in school, inflated ego, being born with a sense of entitlement, trouble with authority, introversion, hyperactivity, and, most critical of all, having been born after 1978. Interestingly enough, I meet all of these criteria. After many months of deep meditation and admiration of my own figure in a mirror, I have determined that I meet all of these criteria not because I am an Indigo Child, but because I’m sort of a jerk. No need to bring reincarnation into this one.

So, by these broad criteria, we know what the Indigo Children are supposed to be. But why are they important? Because they are, apparently, emissaries from heaven, human angels who will right all the wrongs in the world, creating a veritable utopia for all of mankind. As long, that is, as we don’t stifle their creativity by making them go to school, behave, and so on. Interestingly enough, some New Age gurus claim that the place of the Indigo Children is being usurped by the Crystal Children, who are beginning to be born.

I’m sure you’re asking yourself: who cares? So, some parents believe some new-age hippy baloney to make themselves feel better, what’s the harm in that? I’m sure the less cynical of you will be shocked to learn that being an Indigo Child comes with a price. Not some metaphysical price, like not ever knowing a baby’s smile, but a physical price: the people that made this stuff up are making a fortune on it. Special camps, conventions, schools, and such are springing up all over the place. Gullible chumps are buying books about Indigo Children just as quickly as these new age quacks can churn them out. There’s even a line of crystal knickknacks that parents should by to keep their Indigo Child’s spiritual energies in balance. If there’s anything that gets my ire up more than simpletons believing things without questioning them, it’s when simpletons fund lives of luxury for hippie gurus.

Anyway, there are three reasons that you might be inclined to believe your child is an indigo child. The first is that you’re a sucker who believes everything some flashy con man tells you. The second is that you want your child to be special. I can understand this. Every parent wants their child to have a better life, but they usually do it by sending them to college or something, not by convincing them that they are an outer space superman. It can also come from boredom: need something to really wow the neighbors with at parties? Need a little excitement and adventure in your life? Need something to feel good about? If so, have I got a deal for you. Send me a few hundred dollars and I will come perform a viewing on your child, and declare that his aura, which only I can see, has marked him as the savior of all mankind, one who shall usher in a new era of peace and justice. That should knock ‘em dead at the grocery store.

The other reason is more difficult to ridicule, but somewhat more disturbing. One of the claims that proponents of the Indigo Child theory make is that children who are hyperactive or afflicted by attention deficit disorder are actually these specially gifted children from space, and that given them medicines such as Ritalin is actually harming them by repressing their divine nature.

So it gives the parents an out. Instead of believing that their children are slightly imperfect, or that they were born with a medical condition, they can believe that there is some sort of conspiracy between the governments and drug companies to keep their Indigo Child down. What the parents are basically saying is ‘we feel uncomfortable thinking that we may have given birth to a child with a chemical imbalance or mental deficiency, so instead, we’re going to buy into crackpot new age theories to assuage our guilt issues. We can’t love a child that’s not perfect.’

You know how you always hear new parents say that as soon as their child was born, the love was instant and unconditional? Not everyone feels that way.

I do believe that perhaps children in this day and age are overmedicated. This doesn’t mean that I think they should be allowed to run around doing whatever the hell they want out of fear that discipline will somehow damage their celestial soul. A friend of mine was at a dentists’ office when one of these Indigo Children came in for an exam. The little boy was running around screaming, hitting other kids, messing up the place, whatever he felt like. The mother, I’m told, really looked like she wanted to scold him and make him behave, but she couldn’t do it because she bought into the idea that punishing misbehavior would harm his angelic nature.
Or take Matthew Melendez, a local Indigo Child that was mentioned a few weeks in the Philadelphia Inquirer. He started telling his mother about his past lives, and then began claiming that he would die an early death because “not everybody grows up.”
Look. Saying stuff like that doesn’t make him some sort of seer, or psychic, or wunderkind, or whatever these new age con-men want you to believe. That makes him a weird little kid that will probably throw himself down a well at 10 just to make his prophecy come true. Hell, I used to say garbage like that. I’m not a psychic, I was just a weird little jerk that watched too much TV.

If you have a child and someone tells you it is an Indigo Child, immediately reach for your wallet. It’s probably not there anymore. If it is, whatever you do, think before you immediately believe what that person is trying to tell you, no matter how nice it would make you feel to believe that your child will be the savior of the earth. Use some common sense.

Be seeing you.

First published in The Triangle 3 Februaryl 2006.