It’s easy, as an adult, to get caught up in the concept of teaching children. We think we are giving them information that otherwise they wouldn't know - like pouring liquid into an empty container. But what if that container has something inside already? Something hidden and unknown, to the pourer and the pouree? To the adult and the child? What would it mean to find out what it is already there? How would it change how we see and relate to children?
If you were inspecting an unknown receptacle, a mysterious vessel, how would you proceed?
Curiously?
Hesitantly?
Gently?
Respectfully?
Open-mindedly?
Yeah! We hope so! We simply can’t make assumptions, because we just don’t know. And yep, that is the case with children. We can’t assume anything because we don’t know who they are, who they will be. They are not extensions of ourselves, our mother, Aunt Rose or even society - yet.
They’re not a product of anything. They just got here. It’s a mystical, magical time of being completely immersed in the unknown, and being there with your baby. You both have the freedom, only for a short time, to relish the mystery before it’s solved. Who are they? And how are they going to change?
If we stay curious, our children grow up with the freedom to reveal themselves to us, and actually, to themselves too. You’re granting them the safest space for a process that can be at times very scary and confusing and difficult. Growing up is a process of discovering ourselves - don’t you remember? We are not pre-cut shapes that fit easily into the tumultuous gears of life so that we can be a well-functioning machine.
And we shouldn’t be. You don’t want your child to conform to every societal expectation of them. You don’t want them to grow up only knowing how to accommodate others and not themselves. Embrace the unknown, and come to know it together.
Comments