The question of fathers and sons has of course been a live one in every age. And today any parent asks themselves a great many questions about upbringing, understanding and their relationship with their children. And on those poor parents rains down an unimaginable quantity of advice, answers, instruction and recommendations from teachers, counsellors, doctors…..
I am not going to give you advice. I want to offer you one simple thought to turn over in your mind, and perhaps, once you have read this article, the idea I am offering will bear fruit. My idea is very simple, and anyone who allows themselves to dwell on it even a little will no longer have to puzzle over the following questions:
- how to treat their child,
- how to bring them up,
- what to allow and what not to,
- how to find a way through to them, how not to shout at their children,
- how to build a connection,
- how to understand their child,
and ………………………….
Because you will find the answer to every one of those questions yourself, straight away, if you keep in mind one simple idea — the one I am coming to below.
But first, I invite you to look at the answers parents gave (39 of them) to the prompt: "My child, to me, is..........." (complete the sentence).
https://www.facebook.com/groups/mozgopravi/permalink/2572608079490971/
In first place — my happiness, my joy — 12 answers.
In second place — the meaning of my life — 6 answers.
In third place — an object of love — 4 answers, and of care — 2 answers
Here are some of the other answers:
A gift of fate/ A sage/ A little pest/ My continuation/ My hope and my support/ Part of my heart/ My future/ A person worthy of love and respect/ Teacher number/ My little sun and star/ My rescue from loneliness/ My friend, my man /A kindred spirit /The universe/ These are the little rays of my heart / My little bird and a bit of a fibber /A miracle!!! And the continuation of my life through her successes!
You can see that every comment is shot through with enormous love for the child, and one word comes up again and again: MY. I am not going to unpack here what an attitude like "my life", "my everything" and the like holds in store for the child and for the mother alike — that is a large subject of its own.
Here is the idea I want to offer you!
What if we were to see our children not as something OURS, but as an immense treasure — a creation of God (and it does not matter here whether you are religious or not, the point stands either way) — which does not belong to us, which has been placed in our hands only for a time, to keep, to teach, to raise and to nurture like the most precious of flowers?
And it is not a gift to us, not a reward, not something we made ourselves — it is precisely something entrusted to us for a while. And if we do not carry out that charge with full responsibility, if we do not put all our strength into it, there will be a reckoning when the owner returns and finds that we have been negligent.
Imagine for a moment what you would feel (go on, close your eyes and really let the feeling in) if a person on whom your life and its well-being depend went off on holiday and asked you to look after their dog, or their flower, or their car (it does not matter which). How would you care for it, how would you look after it — could you shout at it, hit it? What if something happened to it? What would become of you when the owner came back and discovered that you had not loved it, not fed it, hurt it, ignored its needs, never petted it, never walked it and so on? Just imagine! I think that at the very least you feel fear — and we are only talking about a person and their dog.
So there you are, my friends: it is all very simple. To love your child for real, you only have to understand that this is not yours — the child does not belong to you, you have been asked to watch over them, and how you do it decides whether you will later receive a reward or a reckoning.
Inspired by the parable of the servant awaiting his master and the parable of the talents.
© Natallia Nechai
