HAVE YOU NOT TURNED OUT TO BE GOOD?!

No matter how you parent, you will come to a point that either you doubt or your children ask you why you did certain things or made certain choices. You will feel the need to stand for how you did it and if the children seem to do well in society you may use that as ‘proof’ that you may have had your flaws, but that you mainly did good.

The rules of society are often the ones that back-up parents. Virtues of politeness and obedience are highly praised when practiced by children.(not so much when practiced by adults!)

It is so much easier on a parent and a teacher if a child is polite and obedient, but at what cost?

POLITE AND OBEDIENT

I was a polite and obedient child. Now, I had no difficulty being that way as I saw the advantage of it already in my earliest years in how to get around adults. Mainly because I had many hospital visits and stays and was often at the mercy of doctors. So I cultivated it further. But it made my world so different from theirs. In my deepest heart I felt a great distance, which would touch fear because of what unpredictable things they would do to me.

You would think I would feel good around children, but I felt insecure around other children of my age, whether they were polite and obedient themselves or on the contrary bold and challenging. So I created a lack of self-esteem amongst my peers and a fear for authority amongst adults.

It took me far into college and an abusive relationship later, before I stepped out the shackles of submissive politeness and obedience and the rebel in me took over. Happily I had the performing arts as my allies and my messages to the world were undeniable. I was after:

1. Understanding amongst humans for who they truly are;
2. Research on what emotions are;
3. How we relate;
4. What do we need and what do we want.

INVISIBLE AND MUTE

It was only when I had a child myself that I became aware of the impact of overpowering sustained by demanding a child to make themselves invisible and mute through politeness and obedience.

Any child who is visible and speaking up is considered a terror to the adult. Yes we love and applaud the brave child who does a TEDX talk or an outgoing performance on the Ellen Show, but it better not be at our home, because we have no way of dealing with it.

There are societies, communities, tribes who truly interact with children. So how come, that in our society, we alienated ourselves from the child-kingdom. How come we do not accept who they are in their essence of playful human, how come we cannot grow with them, how come we hardly can cope with the fact that they portray so much more energy than we?

SCHOOL

We are doing a pretty good job to control that by putting them in institutions where they are deprived of most of their daily enthusiasm, limitless energy and body movement and again we sustain this by demanding politeness and obedience. Then we give that system the fancy word of ‘school’ and convince ourselves that that is good for them, for whom they are going to turn out to be. We do not ask who they are now. We want them to turn out to be good, an idea we have for them built on society demands. We do not ask how old a child is, we ask in which grade they are. They become a grade; and then a next grade and then a next grade. Most of them are polite and obedient and if there is a troublemaker we try medicine. If that is not sufficient we eliminate them from the others.

So if all goes well, a parent can see that the young adult is such a promise (again not now, but in the future). A career, a marriage, oh all goes so well. The parent becomes a grandparent. But then there is a turning point.

THE TURNING POINT

The child, who is now a parent themselves, lives in an age that new awareness comes along.

They came to the realization that they want to parent differently than their parents did, they feel the shackles of insecurity and how quickly they feel offended or intimidated, sustaining unhealthy relationships. They always thought it was who they are, but now that they have children, they may see, it is because of these society values received from their parents and their schools, that they may even turn out to be permissive parents!

So they go on a quest and want to discover what a child really needs to grow naturally and how one can truly interact with children on a human basis. How we are meant to be in essence.

Their parents shake their heads. Why are you not having your children listening to you! What’s wrong with setting the rules! Look at yourself! Have you not turned out to be good?

Peace and Understanding,

Cielja