The love of Life can save us All
Mar 24 '01
The Bottom Line Teach your children to love Life, and they will in turn, pass it on to future generations.
I have finally arrived at one conclusion about Love. It is the influence behind every human action. Impossible, you say?
I don't claim to know everything, but if you trace a person's motives right down to the core, Love will be involved in one way or another eventually. I was discussing this with a group of friends in chat one day, and a girl told me, "My boyfriend dumped me last week for no reason, I don't think that was the result of Love." My response was, "Maybe he loved himself more."
I didn't even rehearse that response, and was kind of surprised with what I had said. However, after several days, I started to realize that this Love of self I had been referring to was responsible for more than just a few minor acts of unkindness. It was responsible for every act of violence or crime. As difficult as it is to accept it, the people who commit crimes do it out of love for themselves (or Love of money). They have no respect for the world around them, and feel that they have a God-given right to trample on anyone or anything. It's Love of self, but the shocking thing is that it is still Love, just pointed in the wrong direction. While it is a good thing to learn to love yourself, you cannot allow that kind of Love to take over every action.
So what does this have to do with showing affection? We'll get there.
This lack of respect that our felons have for the world is just the thing that's missing today. It's not the Love of any one particular group of people that they're missing. It's not the respect for other people's material possessions that they lack. What they're needing is something that you have to instill in them from the beginning. It's called the Love of Life.
The true value of life, how precious and fragile it is, can only come in the form of the Love we share with each other. Love is not earned, it is unconditional. Love is not a possession, it is respect. And most of all, it is not a destination, it is a process. I could shoot off three or four dozen people right here in this community that I feel I love. But I'd probably get called "crazy" by those who feel that Love is a destination and that I haven't "gotten there", that I don't have it as a possession, that the people I love probably never earned it.
Here's where the kids come into the picture. One day, you're standing in line at a grocery store. Suddenly out of the blue, you see the most adorable baby in the next line, wrapped in a blanket and giggling as it reaches its hands up at its mothers face while she teases him. You can't help but smile when you see the little tyke. Why do we smile when we see something like that?
It is because we know deep down inside that Life is a miracle and that when we smile, it is because of our own Love of Life.
In order for a child to grow up harboring the same appreciation for Life, we have to pass it on. First and foremost in accomplishing this process is...
Acknowledging their existence. Nothing hurts a baby more than to be ignored. You might think of them as, more or less, your pet at this point. I know for one, that I don't remember much of what happened when I was younger than three, or maybe two. However, watching the growth of my sister, who is five years younger than I, I can tell you that these babies thrive on attention. Like your pets, they don't have anything else in the world to think about. Nothing else! No bills, no television shows, no reading and rating to catch up on, no new Dave Matthews Band CD's, no careers to choose. The world is just a "chaos of existence", so to speak. That is why they need to have someone close to them, to reassure them that they are not alone. Once you have established that connection, then you can focus on making this connection a positive one.
Make sure that they grow accustomed to your touch, and make double sure that your touch is comfortable to them. One thing that really has to be bad about being a baby is not being able to communicate in such a sophisticated manner. If it hurts somewhere, all a baby can do is cry; they don't have the capacity to tell you where it hurts yet, so you are left with trial and error. Patience is integral in a time like this, when you can do nothing but try to comfort them in their time of pain.
Sing to them. Yeah, it's cheesy but hey, they love it! You don't have to be Celine Dion to comfort your child, you just have to be familiar to them, that's all! Much like the issue of touching, if a child knows that a touch or a voice is familiar, they will learn to trust it. In this way, you can become more affectionate with them as the time goes on.
Well, those years, they do pass, and next thing you know, you're taking your kids to school, keeping up with their grades, their transportation, their sports, their flu shots, and so on and so forth. But just because children are starting to find other things to occupy their time and minds, it does not mean that they are squared away for life. The affection must go on. If you have been overly affectionate with them in their opening years, then they should grow to depend on it, as all humans do whether they admit it or not.
Set aside time to talk with them and be close to them. Try to incorporate it into the daily routine, at the same time every day. Affection up until about five years of age is for the most part, physical. When your children start learning how to communicate, you must give them affection through communicating as well.
Incentives work better than threats! Or so I have heard. My parents used to give me five dollars for every A on my report card, one dollar for every B, and a quarter for every C. Why couldn't all jobs be like that now? Getting paid based on the quality of your work, rather than the time you put into it! What child could resist the thought of coming home with straight A's and getting handed thirty dollars? Of course, you may also want to have an allowance set up for them, say five dollars every Friday, but have a chart set up on the refrigerator where they could gain or lose money on their earnings, based on their actions. If you don't clean up your room, you lose two dollars. If you hit Johnny at the daycare center again, you lose it all! That kind of thing. It may not be the best thing to teach children to love money so soon, but money is nothing more than a symbol of trust that you have earned it, whether it's by working for it or trading something for it. Bottom line is, make them understand that they have to earn it and you're okay. Above all else, though, don't just give them money for their effort. Give them praise. Tell them that you're proud of them. Tell them that you love them, but remind them that it's not just because they got straight A's, but because they made an effort that made you proud.
I think most parents are proud of their kids, no matter how many times they spill the apple juice or slip up and make a boo-boo. When I was younger, however, I didn't understand pride. It started to make sense to me later on, but then I realized that the majority of this pride was coming from my being able to do square roots in my head, or being able to type the fastest of anybody in my class. Everytime a new friend called on the phone, I'd get to hear them brag about their son being the "fastest fingers in the south", or a "walking calculator". Yet, sometimes I just found it downright frustrating because that didn't say anything about who I was. I don't hold any grudges against my parents about that. However, I do believe that if you're going to brag to the world about your kids, make sure you put emphasis on being proud of them for who they are, as opposed to their latest touchdown or some other accomplishment. As it is, we got people running around the world thinking that accomplishments are what make a person successful. And worse yet, people even look for that in a soulmate.
Just make sure that your kids know that you love them for who they are. If they get this kind of love from their parents, then they are far less likely to go searching for it in gangs or other less suitable ways. The love between a child and his mother snuggling under a blanket together watching TV is far more affirmative than love amongst a group of teenagers drinking in a car because they couldn't find acceptance anywhere else.
In closing, let me just say that I believe if you have an epidemic of unpleasant teachers for a certain subject in school, you will have very little, if any, passion at all for pursuing that subject further. I never would've cared about Chemistry if not for Mrs. Davis, I know that.
Well, I think the same applies here. Children will have very little, if any, passion at all for pursuing the subject of Life, unless they have pleasant teachers to teach them about Life.
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Member: Timothy Bishop
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