Disaster does not happen as a single event - it is the final act of a play that started long before the final curtain.
All the Little Lights - Passenger
(All The Little Lights lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC)
What an incredible gift children are. From the excitement at the first news of conception, the journey of raising children can and should be a wonderful adventure for parent and child. How fantastic the miracle of creating new life, and how awesome the responsibility of creating an environment where children can flourish.
I have a vision of childhood as a sacred, sanctified space. A place where children can feel safe, loved, and capable, and where they can confidently seek out and develop their own unique giftedness. A place where learning is seen as worthwhile, rather than an instrumental means to an end, and where adults and parents, each whole within themselves, interact in such a way that builds up and nourishes the child's growing self-esteem.
We all have big dreams for our children. We want that which is best for them, and yet, sometimes in all of that we prescribe a very narrow understanding of success, often projecting our own wants and failures onto the child, that they may become the self that we never were. And from that initial state of baby innocence, every incremental step (sometimes so small that it goes un-noticed) every word, every action, every label - every condition - slowly but certainly, co-forms the child and parent. It is the child which eventually forms the adult.
What a privilege to be part of that journey though. Everyone wants to 'get it right', but it is a complex task. I take it as a given that each child is born with his or her own unique individuality, and that no two of us are exactly the same. Given that to be true, there can be no user-guide to raising children that is applicable in its entirety, and there is no body of work that can definitively cover every variable inherent in raising children. While that may be a challenge, it is also a most incredible blessing, for it is the very essence of human relationships. It is through those differences that we are elevated from animals and uniquely different to machines.
And so, how can it sometimes so tragically come to this?
"The meeting room was a typical school boardroom. Wood paneling glowered inwards, darkening the physical appearance and also the mood of the room. Carved into the wood were rows and rows of names, the successful, looking down on a sorry scene of failure. At the head of the table sat the Head, with various role players in this tragedy scattered strategically around the table. The accused sat with his parents, bottom left.
It is a strange reality of hearings like these that the accused usually says much more than is necessary, and this case had been no exception. The evidence had been overwhelming: he had brought drugs onto campus and hidden them in the cistern of a toilet for later distribution. In the hearing the accused had helpfully filled in the evidential gaps. After some deliberation by 'the panel' he and his family had filed back into the oppressive little room to hear the verdict of the committee.
That moment before the inevitable, time slows down. Caught in the no-man's land between school and expulsion, the accused still wears his uniform with exaggerated pride, tucking in his shirt for one last time. His parents take their seats, conforming to a formality that they do not yet know no longer applies to them. It is a tragic moment, and as the expulsion finding is read out, the humanity of the 'accused' visibly deflates, and a life is changed. The triumph of the system, the defeat of the individual, dancing together in the silent room.
And how did we get here? We never saw it coming. This child is not a 'bad' boy, his parents are not 'bad' people either. Why, when, and how did this all start? Somewhere, at some time on the journey from babyhood to teenage-hood, his life's direction has incrementally changed course. What were the forces directing those decisions? Why did we not see them? Although he was expelled for selling drugs, is he really a 'drug dealer'? And what now? "
It is the complexity of cases like these that make the joy of raising children such an interesting and challenging task. If we see young children in terms of success and failure, we fail to see them at all. Instead, we see only behaviour, and make the mistake of overlooking the "unsayable" - those things that s/he dares not or can-not express openly, articulated creatively through the behaviour that has informed their decision making to this point.
It is cases such as this, and many, many others, that have left me in awe of the complexities involved in raising children. And while every child most certainly is unique, and thus no one method really covers all eventualities, there are certain patterns and behaviours that make for a truly successful child. That child has (amongst others) an internal knowledge and love of self, appropriate levels of self-esteem, an understanding of his or her place in the world, and positive relationships with others.
The chilling reality about how things go wrong can be found in the power of increments. It is by increments that we get old, it's how we get unfit, and, conversely, how we get fit - slowly, each increment un-noticed yet, when added to each-other, deeply significant. Disaster does not happen as a single event - it is the final act of a play that started long before the final curtain.
Our role as parents and educators is to notice the (literal and metaphorical) light in our children's eyes - to feed that which brightens the light, and notice the incremental dimming of that spark. That each bright moment may combine, like individual brushstrokes, to create an eventual masterpiece - lest incremental diming fades it to darkness.