An Essay A Day For A Year
By Roe
Day 36 February 5, 2012
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After 35 essays it is probably clear that I place a lot of value in the wisdom of children and childhood. It used to be an interesting hobby of mine just being a child, the irony is that I never got to be one. Now I spend a lot of time remembering how wise I was during the time when I wished I could have been one. Ever since I was born I also have had the hobby of watching adults and their world and hoping to appreciate and admire them and I always hoped to emulate them when I grew up. Unfortunately I barely found any. I was told that I was being prepared to be an adult and some day also be in charge of my own part of the adult world, and even someday make a difference. Well I truly believe that I turned out for the most part just like the adults that mentored me into adulthood, and the results are poor to say the least.
When I look around me in this new global world I feel sorry for us all. When I was a small child in the 60’s it hadn’t dawned on virtually anyone yet that we had effectively destroyed our planet and most life on it. It hadn’t come clear yet that the selfish Me first free enterprise capitalistic system birthed in America devours everything in its sight, including people, for the benefit of the few, and at the expense of the rest. It wasn’t so obvious how violent and warlike we were, and how state sponsored hate was being perpetrated politically again by the few, and again at the expense of us all. By the time we grow up we are so sure that we know what we are doing that we teach the little ones who may have a better idea to be just like us. Hurry up and grow up and grind yourself to a pulp so you can make lots of money and buy all those things they sell you on TV. Go ahead and be patriotic so you can kill those you are told to kill, and you know they are right because their authority told you to do it.
I became sure when I grew up that adults don’t have any idea what they are doing, and they are positive that they do. I lived first hand traveling the world for a decade to see the embarrassing clash between ignorance and obedience. Everyone is so sure that all the little ones need a good education, but no one knows what to do with that education except purchase status and power and entertainment. In my travels I found the most educated people to be the ones with the most freedom, and they were indigenous tribal peoples that were free to do what they liked most of the day. I looked back on the fake freedom that all American’s are brainwashed with from babyhood, and I cringed.
By the time children receive 14-15 years of a questionable education, plus homework and chores, and then an entire childhood on a short leash and collar to be kept “good”, I am not surprised at all of the selfishness and greed and violent state that I see all of us and our world in. I find this to be so ironic since before the indoctrination at the hands of parents and society, little children were kind and generous, fun and forgiving. Children are playful and silly, children are affectionate and emotional, children are spontaneous and ambitious doing what they love. I imagine an adult world where we practice generosity, and fun and forgiveness. I would love to live in a world where adults are affectionate and emotional, where we that are in charge of our world are spontaneous and ambitious doing what we love.
With the state of life and the world as it is today we are all in very real and deep danger and jeopardy. I never heard of this when I was growing up, but I definitely predicted it. We adults are obedient to the system that spoon fed us our harmful capitalism and harmful patriotism, and we have no ability or right to chaperone the next generation into our own disaster. It is time for very real and powerful changes to occur, so powerful that they can radically revolutionize our world. And how funny that the world’s greatest radicals and revolutionaries are children. Children still remember laughing and singing and dancing, and how to think for themselves.
I was so sure that I was not so sure how to be a parent, that I did the best I could to honor the childhoods of my children, and that meant to butt out. Luckily for me I discovered through a dear friend A,S. Neill and his book Summerhill. I highly recommend this book to anyone who used to be a child. Children definitely don’t need it since all is speaks of is allowing children to be free, and children know freedom better than any adult could possibly remember. Since I questioned my own ability to be a decent parent after I was ground to an obedient pulp, I decided that my children needed to be free to simply be themselves. I have had the honor and privilege to live in a house with 4 free children who were not expected to do anything but be children, as much as a nuclear family could manage. My children had the choice to go to school or not, and whether to be home schooled or not, and they chose only complete freedom to do anything they liked all day every day. The children had no ban on behavior or language or sexuality, at least that did not impinge on my freedoms. The kids had no homework or chores, no brainwashing religion, and no TV or video games or computers. The children were given the approval to be themselves, and the support of us as parents to support their interests.
In the beginning everyone from family to friends to old Mother Hubbard were adamantly against us and our no system, system, and they all feared some Lord Of The Flies kind of disobedient disaster. I am proud to say that our children have created for themselves some kind of wonderful Lack Of Lord Of The Flies new paradigm, and beautifully. It is called self-hood. It is very interesting to me how my kids have a sound mind of their own, and how they have little value or respect for authority wielded by the few at the cost of the many. They don’t worship money or success or “things”, and they have no interest whatsoever in religion or country or duty to anything but their own interests. I like how their interests are generous and fun and forgiving, and I like how even coming on twenty something, they are playful and silly. I like how they are affectionate and emotional, and spontaneous. I like how they are supremely ambitious at doing what they like to do. I especially like how much they doubt any and all persons that do not respect their right to be free, and how they respect others that also have a mind of their own. Wow.
Now after having been largely parented myself by children still alive to love and be loved, I’m beginning to have some hope for us and our world. I just love knowing that i will be told at any minute by them what a hypocrite I am, and that I don’t know anything. I welcome them to show me the way and to make their own mistakes, and I welcome the learning for us all when all our children are trusted to be themselves and think for themselves. Parenting is meant to be a partnership, and I think that just keeping our little geniuses fed and from death, loved and approved of, is all we need t do. They have the rest, and the radical revolutionary changes coming to our world are already in their playful and loving hearts.
See you tomorrow.
yourpersonalmuse@gmx.com
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