We should raise children to the world. Make them autonomous, freed them up, even from our orders. After a certain age, only advices are usefull. Experts taught us to believe that just this attitude makes adult the baby that one day we carried in the belly. And most of us parents believe and try to do so. What does not stop us from suffering when they make choices different from those we would have liked or when they themselves suffer for the choices that we recommended.
So a child is a being lent to us for a crash course in how to love someone other than ourselves, in how to change our worst flaws to give the best examples and how to learn to be brave. That’s right! Being a parent is the greatest act of courage that anyone can have, because it is being exposed to all sorts of pain, especially the uncertainty of acting correctly and the fear of losing something so dear .. Losing? How? They are not ours, remember? It was just a loan! So whose children are our children? I believe they are God’s, but with respect to atheists, let’s say they are their own, owners of their lives, however for a time they had to be dependent on their parents to grow, biologically, sociologically, psychologically and emotionally.
What about my feelings, my devotion, my investment? Should it not return in laughter, pride, grandchildren and support in old age? Thinking like that is understanding the children as ours and they, do not forget, are the world’s! I come home after the shift, beginning of vacation, more time for children, I look at my little ones and I think it would be nice if they were not only loan! But they are.They are the world’s. The problem is that my heart is theirs.
Holy angel of the Lord …
It is the most concrete reality. It only remains to us, mothers and fathers, to pray and enjoy every moment possible at the side of our ‘youngs’, even being ‘borrowed’, they are the biggest part of us!
“Life is brief, but therein lies much more than we can live.”
José Saramago
My thanks to Renata, Maurício and their sons Thiago and Felipe.
