I sometimes allow myself to dwell in a wonderful fantasy of being the epitome of tolerance, composure and constraint with my children. For in fact there are days when I am such a mother. It’s ok, I sing with the twinkling eyes of the fairy godmother, mistakes are allowed in our home! Accidents happen, and that’s ok! sing Elmo and I in unison. We must just learn from our mistakes; I say with the fortitude of Maria Von Trapp. On these days, I think to myself, how blessed these children are to have such a mother.

And then there are those days. Those days when the fantasy is shattered. The bucket is empty—perhaps lack of sleep, low-level anxiety about some other issue, layer on layer of other minor triggers, and bam, the mistakes that were allowed to happen yesterday are not ok today.  

I've read too much of Marshall Rosenberg, founder of Non-Violent Communication to claim ignorance of the power I wield as an adult in a position of power. We have normalized authority in patriarchal societies to dehumanize, particularly children, in the way that we attempt to train and nurture them through punishment and rewards.

For about 10,000 years over most of our planet, people have been operating according to what I call domination structures in which some people claim to be superiors and have the right to control others because they know what's best...

...When we are in these positions labelled authority, within families, within schools, within the business place, it's very easy if we don't watch out, to lose connection with our own humanness and the humanness of others, and see people as titles. -Marshall Rosenberg-

Preparing children for the world is hard. Helping them find new ways of being human when we are in the process of learning ourselves is even harder.

I've decided I must instead hold myself to the same expectations that I have for them and have attempted to find ways to learn and grow, despite my not there yet.

Taking the advice of a mentor, I sat my children down and told them that just because they are children, doesn’t mean I have the right to speak to them disrespectfully. So, if I speak to them as such, they have permission to call me out and say, mum, let’s talk when you’ve calmed down and you’re ready to be respectful.

One of the things that I find very important to prepare our children with; is to show them how to maintain their own integrity. their own value system, even if they are going to be in different structures that have different values than they have. -Marshall Rosenberg-

The next time it happened, What were you thinking?! ha harm ra ha!! 

To my wonder. My joy. My pride. My relief, said child responded boldly and calmly:

Mum, when you calm down and you're ready to speak to me respectfully, I’ll listen. For now, I’m leaving the room and I'm going outside.  

Those words broke, nay shattered, the emotional curse that had grabbed hold of me. Indeed, guilt herself didn't even know how to respond, except to run.

I took a moment to collect, then went and found said child outside where we had a respectful conversation about the situation. I also thanked her for creating a healthy boundary around her heart. It was healing for both of us.

We are all in the process of becoming human--the kind of humanity that Jesus and other mystics, prophets and saints have revealed to us. We all have the choice to lean into that calling or not.

If we do, then I believe we have the assured certain hope that these little human ones, when their time comes, will go up like the arrow, swift and far.

The Prophet, Kahlil Gibron

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.

And he said:

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.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes backward not tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are set forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the Archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Kahlil Gibron, The Prophet p 20-22: Kahlil Gibron was born in 1893 near Mount Lebanon, a region that has produced many prophets. He was a poet, philosopher and artist and his poetry has been translated into more than twenty languages. His drawings and paintings have been exhibited in the great capitals of the world and compared by Auguste Rodin to the work of William Blake.

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