95. Not Yours

We are often asked about our children, our boys, who are now young men emerging into the world. We are asked how it is they are such extraordinary human beings? How is it so? What did we do as parents?

If you met them you might ask the same. And yes! There is a response to the question, but it is more to do with what we DON’T DO as parents, what is NOT present in the family ecology, rather than what “we do”.

It comes down to respect and trust. What greater love can we give?

But in order to truly engender deep respect and trust, there is something that comes first, perhaps the greatest gift of all.

First of all, “your” child is NOT yours! They are not your possession. They are on their own journey here within your fertile, safe and promoting custodianship for a while. But they do not belong to you. They “belong” to the human proposition!

So as parents and educators our “job” is to provide safe, clean and clear opportunities for natural human development; for the young lives in our care to be best equipped to find their own way inside the greater human journey.

This is not easy to do because there is so much to resist, so many things that try to ‘claim’ a human life, to prevent us from keeping our lives open. However, born out this resistance is a profound love and respect for life, all life! Why would we not trust that?

We have all inherited a human legacy littered with manipulation, exploitation and possession of human life. But…we don’t have to participate in it.

Treat children as the extraordinary human potential they actually are! It begins, as always, by respecting the same in you!

To love a child is to value them without possession.

~PAZ

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