I wonder
how many of us parents are willing to admit the expectations
we hold for our children often exceed those we ask of
ourselves. The model of perfection left the garden with
Adam and Eve, and yet that model continues to be our touchstone
for human behavior. The lack of joy, confidence and peace
in ourselves and our children, I believe, starts here.
So, what to do? Abraham Lincoln said, “There is
only one way to raise up a child in the way he should
go and that is to go that way yourself.” At first
reading, it appears Lincoln encourages parents to be good
examples for their children. A second reading invites
parents to go the way of the child!
We parents need to lower the bar for externals, like competition
of all kinds, and raise the bar for internals, like compassion
in every arena.
When the disciples asked Jesus who was the greatest in
the kingdom of heaven, Jesus pulled a child out of the
crowd and said the greatest in the kingdom of heaven were
people like this (Matthew 18:1-4).
Children are unburdened by preconceptions. They live with
their hands open, not their fists clenched. They sleep
undisturbed. They live with joy, one day at a time.
But, sadly, sin is very real in our world, and the consequence
of sin will eventually find its way into the waking and
the sleeping dreams of our children. Disappointment, rejection
and worry creep into their experience.
We parents cannot keep our children from the pain of being
human. We can help them to cope with pain and even teach
them to lessen the pain for other people. But words alone
will not do it.
“Don’t ever smoke,” my mother said to
me as she exhaled a blue stream of the stuff herself,
“you’ll never be able to quit.” I believed
her then, and resolved never to start. Many years later
I echoed her words to my son, Mike. He said to me, “Well,
you smoked and you quit, so I’ll quit when I’m
a little older.”
Mike’s grandfather died last fall of lung cancer.
His grandmother has emphysema. His own lungs are compromised
because I smoked when he was a baby. Mike only remembers
what he has seen: I smoked, I quit, I’m still living.
Wouldn’t it be lovely if life were more like a game
of ball in the schoolyard? When things got messy we could
just call out, “Do over!” and start again.
Though we cannot change history — those poor examples
we set and regret — we can start again.
With The Lord’s Prayer, we beg the forgiveness of
God in the same breath in which we resolve to forgive
others. Frederick Buechner, a very wise teacher, wrote,
“What Jesus is apparently saying is that the pride
which keeps us from forgiving is the same pride which
keeps us from accepting forgiveness, and will God please
help us do something about it” (Wishful Thinking).
Asking a child for forgiveness is a powerful example to
the child. The parent who accepts forgiveness is nearly
overwhelmed in unanticipated peace and joy. Both parties
are imprinted with the freedom “to be at peace inside
their own skins and to be glad in each other’s presence.”
It’s as good as a “Do over!”
Often in life people will say “Oh, you just can’t
understand until you’ve experienced it yourself.”
This is certainly true of parenting a child. They are
the great teachers. They are also vehicles of conversion
for their parents.
The continuing conversion dynamic in families is a marvelous
spiraling upward. Our efforts to offset the influence
of a sinful world by good example inspires like behavior
in our children. Their reminders to us to behave as we
have instructed call us back over and over.
One evening my husband came through the back door in a
jovial mood that was, unfortunately, not contagious. He
said to me, “Let’s go out for dinner and a
movie, you know, a date!” I must have sighed deeply
and shrugged, and immediately our daughter said brightly,
“I’ll go with you, Dad!”
In a split second she assessed the “justice”
required in the situation. She redeemed my unloving response
by stepping in to reconcile. Apparently God listens when
I pray to be kept humble.
As parents, we perform the Corporal Works of Mercy, (feed
the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked,
visit the imprisoned, shelter the homeless, visit the
sick, bury the dead) over and over for our families. At
our best times, we live in the mutual compassion of the
domestic church.
When we extend that compassionate embrace in our neighborhoods,
our towns, our world, we echo Pope John Paul II’s
first New Year’s message in 1979, “To reach
peace, teach peace.”
St. Francis urged us to “Speak the Gospel at all
times; if necessary, use words.” Imagine a never-ending
game of Charades, and the word is: “Jesus.”
Imagine the players; they are the children, sometimes.
Imagine the audience; it is the parents, sometimes. Imagine
the winners: Everybody, all the time!
(Gannon, a mother of four children, ages 16 to 25,
is a confirmation catechist and director of RCIA, the
Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, at St. James Parish,
Mequon.) |
