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OUR CHILDREN
By Sergio Salotto

If you have read the book by Kahlil Gibran called The Prophet, you will recognise these words he “spoke” when asked to speak about children.

“Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.”

No doubt you have also heard the statements and pronouncements below made time and again by people from all walks in life – religious leaders, politicians, celebs, social workers or whomever:

" Our children are our future"; "The future rests in our children's hands"; "Let us build a future for our children"; "Let us preserve our worldly heritage for our future generations".

Aren’t these wonderful teachings and sentiments? If only we were putting them into practice. If we were, they would be the ultimate foundations for all of us to enjoy a most joyous life of peace and contentment for all mankind. The saddest thing of all is how easily possible it is to do yet we are not getting it right. Why so?

Well, the first thing we need to consider is whether or not we really serious about practicing what we preach?
For example, why are we considering looking at a future state of our human existence when we are not willing to first resolve the fundamental issues we are creating in the present? What better future state can we possibly hope to create by holding on to fundamental ideologies and beliefs that are the root cause of our existing problems? Think about it. We currently continue to conduct and live our lives rooted in ideologies and beliefs that date back over 2000 years and still prepared to kill, destroy and war based on religious and cultural differences that go back even further than 2000 years. How can we change anything out of such thinking? But we still maintain that we learn from our mistakes of the past. Hello! Have I missed something? Hmmm .. I doubt it.

There is no question that we have benefited greatly from the advancements we have made in technology. But (yes, there is a “but”) how are we using these benefits to really improve and uplift the lives of everyone on our planet unconditionally equally? No we are not. Why? Because we consider profit, economic and financial gains more important than anything else – be it a human or other life form. I was stunned back in 1993 (or may have been 1994 at the latest) when I heard the late Peter Ustinov on TV say at a UNICEF conference that the cost of one (may have been two but certainly not more) US fighter plane/s would be enough to cure children diseases of every child all over the world. That is a frightening statistic. And if that does not raise and question our adult sense of caring, then I guess nothing will - it certainly raises mine.

Ok, so what does all this have to do with the teachings and statements quoted above?

More than we like/want to care or admit because it affects how we parent our children, how we influence them, how we shape their thinking and ultimately their lives, what we expect of them, how we guide them through life to deal with their many life issues, how as parents (in many cases) we “use” them to live out our own failed life dreams, how we acknowledge them (or not) for who they really are, and so on. And how do we do this.

Take the centuries old war situation in the Middle East – or anywhere else for that matter. Why and how are they being perpetuated? Well, if you were to take a group of 3 – 6 year old Israeli and Palestinian children and put them on the same playground to mingle and interact freely without adult intervention (or at best under non-secular adult supervision), guaranteed that they would show absolutely zero intolerance of one another based on grounds of their differing cultures. This shows how children are not born with any sense of cultural ideology (but you already know that). But, as they grow and develop in our family environment we indoctrinate them to into believing in their cultural ideologies and religious beliefs and in the process they learn to see one another as enemies. In the process we make them warring machines for the destruction of the other.

The same principle has applied in our own country South Africa. For centuries white children were indoctrinated (cases still exist) to consider and treat black people as lesser human beings – hence apartheid. The same applies to Moslems versus Christians. In all situations we continue waging age old wars based on nothing more than ideologies and beliefs. And we do the same in our own families. It is not uncommon to find families where children continue to bear and carry family grudges arising out of disagreements initiated by their parents.

Given these behaviours and practices, are we in any position to create a better future for our children? Do we even have any intention to? Or do we instead want and expect them to continue what we have started because we consider and believe that we are right and know better? After all, isn’t one of our fundamental assumptions in life that children do not know anything, that as parents it is our responsibility to teach them because we (supposedly) know better? But do we really know better? Hmm… given our state of existence, I don’t think we do.

To state the obvious, as we have all experienced childhood how were you influenced and affected by your family, social and cultural environment? If you are a parent, how are you influencing your child through your ideologies and beliefs?

Does all this seem a bit “heavy” to digest and work with? Maybe it is. Yet, I tell you it is not and it does not have to be like that for you neither (assuming it is). You see, before you can put into practice what you preach you first need to be aware of what you are doing, why and what results you want to achieve. Without this awareness you will keep operating out of your sense of rightness and thus don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of changing anything no matter how much you may want to or desire.

Consider what you see happening around you with our youth today. We have more and more incidences of our children – and I will add adults as well - resorting to drug and alcohol abuse, becoming sexually active at a younger age, suicides, crime and violence, following some or other cult group, gangsterism, etc. Why so? It is their means of coping with and escaping family demands, expectations, pressures and other socially required norms and values for acceptance. They are not behaving in these self-destructive behaviours out for free choice, they are dong it out of a sense of being rejected if they do not conform, a wanting to belong, seeking acceptance, being part of, seeking recognition and so on. From birth all they want is be themselves and be accepted for who and what they are. But we will not allow it. Why? Because, as I said earlier, we believe that a child does not know what they want or what is good and right for them. Yet I am sure that, when you were a child, deep down you have always known what you really wanted for your life – even today you still do. But out of fear of being rejected by family, peers and society, you gave up on your most inner felt desires – what you really are. The pressures on our children today for a sense of acknowledgment are probably no different to what they have ever been before – though in some ways they may be different in that we are not treating our children as they were many years ago. However, the available mechanisms available to them today to escape their emotional pains are possibly far more self-destructive – like the wanton abuse of drugs as a means of escaping their despair and unhappiness.

And it appears that the more technologically advanced and educated we become the greater the problem. Why? Because children are being put under more and more pressure to excel, to achieve in order to be a “somebody.” Our education system is demanding more and more work from them. There is little to no time for them just enjoy their childhood and play like a child should. No, instead they are pressurised to learn more at earlier and earlier ages. As adults we have this inner sense to drive them to achieve more at younger ages.

Have we ever stopped to think why we are doing this? Do you really believe that Life cares as to whether or not a child learns their multiplication tables at the age of 8 or 15? Of course It does not. The only ones who have these expectations are us adults, parents. And we further compound the problem by giving recognition only to those that – in our views – excel, that meet our social expectations. Those that happen to “fail”, for reasons we do not bother to explore, are considered and treated as “lesser than” individuals.

Which means that instead of creating an environment conducive to a healthy lifestyle equally for all, we are creating an environment of ever-increasing despair and unhappiness? All because we want to self-righteously hold on to our ideological “sacred cows” of religious, political, economical, financial, educational, corporate, technological and other such beliefs. What is it going to take for us to realise that our present ways may not necessarily be the only correct way to live our lives. How can our children ever have the opportunity of showing us who and what they really are if as adults we insist that they follow our entrenched destructive beliefs and ideologies?

Consider for example how many children suffer poverty, illness, starvation, lack of education and death through our persistent adherence to our religious, social and cultural ideologies like our education systems (enforcement versus encouragement), global economic and financial principles and policies, political principles, discrimination between those that have and those that have not – we do not see (perhaps don’t want to acknowledge. And that the few that have can only do so through someone else not having – the fundamental principle of Capitalism’s profiteering.
When I was a child I grew up in an environment that enabled us to safely play games in our streets, ride our bicycles, walk to the corner store, catch a bus on your own, and so on without any concern of being mugged or having your bike hijacked, or being raped or being a victim of any other crime we daily read about in our newspapers. Instead, today, parents have to keep their children indoors out of fear of what may happen to them. How have we improved our lifestyle? Have we improved our children’s quality of life by making available to them all the hi-tech gadgets on the market which holds them glued to the various screens at their disposal like TV, computer, cell phone, gaming machines etc.? How healthy is that really?

The upside of all this however is that we have it in us to change it all without losing anything. In fact, I would say that such change would/could take our progress even further than where we are now. Why? Simply because in the absence of our ideological constraints we would be harnessing the wisdom and knowledge of every human being on this planet instead of only he select and exclusive few as we are doing now.

But to achieve this we need to have the willingness to question whether our beliefs and ideologies are truly conducive to a lifestyle for self expression, unconditional acceptance of one another and equal sharing. And as parents, grandparents, teachers, religious leaders, politicians and adults alike we need to ask ourselves whether we have willingness to allow such meaningful change even if it means giving up and turning away from our age old ideologies and beliefs which are really not serving mankind as a whole.

Holding on regardless to our age old ideologies and beliefs will only perpetuate and increase the “plight” of our children. Instead of blaming and condemning them for rebelling against our structures through abuse of alcohol and illegal drugs, turning to crime and violence, smoking, committing suicides, joining some or other cult or gang, or resort to some or other such socially unacceptable behaviour, as parents and adults we need to review our own ideals.

We need to heed of what Kahlil Gibran says:

So much wisdom in these words.

Make a change in YOUR life and you will support your child in their life to create a worthwhile environment for our future generations.

YOUR LIFE CAN BE DIFFERENT