"Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of
life's longing for itself."

( Kahlil Gibran)



How many times have I heard it said that children should be allowed to be
children?  Don't get me wrong, there is an absolute truth to this, but what
is childhood?  "In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions
are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination,
from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but
have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions
about them were not worth a brass farthing." (Autobiography of Mark Twain by
Samuel Clemens)  Childhood, what it is, and what it means deserves a second
look.

            I was surprised in talking to a sister-in-law, about 18 years my
junior, when she revealed how much it meant to her when she was young to
have me talk to her on a basis of equality.  "You talked to me as if I was a
fully grown up adult."  It surprised me because I didn't realize that I had
been so egalitarian with children; and I was surprised to know how much that
meant to her.  I bring her up because she was the first that brought it to
my attention, but there were others who have communicated the same thing in
different ways.

Children want to be grown up, or at least treated grown up. If you think I
am in error look around and check out what girls are wearing.  Children want
maturity even if the only thing they understand about it is how to look
provocative and sexy.  Of course children want their childhood too and no
child should have the feeling that his family needs him in ways that place
an adult burden on his shoulders.  I am speaking of children with alcoholic
parents and such; who place a burden of adulthood upon their children that
they themselves fail to take up.  I am talking about parents who use their
children to live their lives through and as such must struggle to learn the
violin, take chemistry, be a beauty queen, etc. with all these things
beginning before they can even speak.  Children who need their childhood
tend to have parents who do not understand that,  "Your children are not
your children. They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for
itself. " ( Kahlil Gibran)

A child who understands that he has a place in his families socio-eco-system
that places him in charge of taking out the garbage, mowing the lawn,
keeping his room reasonably clean and somewhat organized is not having his
childhood taken from him; he is learning the balance of life.  Contrary to
popular opinion we are not supposed to be children and then grow into
adults, we are supposed to cherish our childhood and keep it as we grow into
responsible adults.  Our childhood is like our freedom that should never be
taken away, but if the adult part of us does not develop sufficiently to
take the place of our parents, we lose the whole.  It is the same concept
as, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." (Wendell Phillips)  We
might well say, " Eternal maturity is the price of childhood," or, "It takes
a true adulthood in order to have a true childhood"  My conclusions are that
it is impossible for a child to have a true childhood without parents who
are truly adult.  Nor can parents be truly adult who have grown up and
stopped being children.  Jesus said, "Except ye . become as little children,
ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." (Matt 18:3)  We need to be
both, and to teach our children the same.



            The child who grows up without a childhood, because his parents
never gave him one, will be unable to relate to his children in a way that
is healthy (i.e. allow them to be children), unless he somehow overcomes the
handicap that his parents and God has laid on him.  No one is supposed to
lose their childhood; it is a part of us that makes us human and bearable to
live with; a person without any childishness is unbearable to be around for
any length of time.  We need our childhood as that should be the biggest
part of us; it is where we find the essence of who we are.  If you have lost
your child then you have, in reality, lost yourself.

            On the other hand, the child, who grows up with parents who
mistakenly require next to nothing of him because they are afraid they will
in some way harm his psyche, is being harmed just as much on the other end
of the spectrum.  Total freedom with no responsibility is like being thrown
into outer space, you are free, but there is nothing there.  Children are no
different than adults, only in their limitations and abilities; and when any
of us are cut off from the rest of the world it creates an enormous void.
It is impossible to live with other human beings without there being
requirements; the requirements are like dues owed for membership in the
human family.  Without requirements, without duties owed to others there is
no connection; and without connection there is only the aloneness; a void
within ourselves that cries for something more. anything more.   Nature
abhors a void and will fill it with whatever it can find, be it  illicit sex
or gangs, self-centered pity or destructive behavior towards those who they
feel won't let them in.  In some cases they become so alienated and
withdrawn inside themselves that instead of human beings they become
creatures without feelings, empathy, or any kind of a genuine concern for
others.

            In never requiring children to be responsible to the degree that
they are capable many subliminal messages are sent.  Children may not hear
the messages, but they feel them, "incapable or unable, unworthy or of no
value, and ultimately uncared for or unloved."  Don't get me wrong, there is
no parent living that is going to wake up and find their children looking at
them with innocent doe eyes pleading for their parents to give them
responsibilities to save them from their self-centered boredom.  Complaints
of unfeeling cruelty are more what a parent is likely to find.  "Jimmy's
parents don't make him do such and such."  "I don't see why I should have to
do that."  And the list goes on, but if you think this is a childhood malady
think again.  I have worked a few jobs in my life and it is common to hear
complaints about work and wanting to be somewhere else; but everyone is
pretty happy when payday comes around and they head home with their check.
If adults, like children, were not required to work, just show up on paydays
and collect their allowance would they be happier?  Maybe for the first few
weeks, but no one can take without giving and feel good about who they are.

            None of us should ever quit being children, and we should always
find time to play, and that is the crux of the problem; how are we supposed
to be both a child and an adult?  We as adults should have somewhat of a
handle on it, and that is what our children need to be taught if they have
any chance at attaining childhood.  They need to begin understanding at a
young age the balance that makes all of us complete and happy individuals.
As complete and happy individuals we are capable of having complete and
happy relationships, families, children, etc.  In a Christmas Carol Scrooge
is incomplete with all his wealth and power, but finds wholeness as he gives
to and is accepted by Tiny Tim's family.  Perhaps some may find my statement
of giving out of place, but I don't think so.  No one can feel a part of any
organization, relationship, or familial situation in which they have not
given some part of themselves.  Without giving they are cut off, not only
from others, but themselves as well.  Granted they may be included without
any requirement of any kind, but unless the desire to give to this body of
which they have been made a part takes place they will fail to find or make
a connection.  Giving is the glue that bonds us to one another.  Even a
baby, which is the biggest taker ever, gives so much of itself to its
mother, though in ways that can't be seen.  Just try and talk smack about
someone's mother.  You can ridicule or profane someone's Father and
generally get away with it, but not so with mothers.  Perhaps mothers alone
can feel what they are receiving from their child, but the child is giving
all it has. its love and loyalty to the mother who gives them everything.

            When children are not required to give in a family it is almost
like rejection itself.  We ask nothing of you because we want nothing of
you. you are not wanted.  A person who gets a check he has not earned cannot
feel a deep sense of worth or belonging.  If he does not work with the other
men but just picks up a check what camaraderie has he developed?  I doubt he
even has as much gratitude for what he has received as those who have earned
it by the sweat of their brow.  I believe people on welfare are the biggest
complainers.  What do they have to complain about?  Their check didn't come
on time; they didn't get a cost of living increase; they simply complain
because their soul is in pain.

            The need to be a part of something greater than ourselves; the
need to feel a part of some kind of familial situation or connectedness is
that which is behind children, so-called, who become part of a gang; and the
willingness to take a life in order to be accepted is a price some children
are willing to pay.  I was in Mesa, Arizona the morning after a security
guard at the LDS Temple was killed by a teenager for no other reason than to
obtain the acceptance of his peers.  This allowing children their childhood
can be a potentially deadly doctrine if people do not understand what
childhood is.

            Children who have had their childhood held sacrosanct to the
point of never being allowed entry into adulthood or ostracism have no
understanding of how to obtain their other half; the adult half.  When
children who have not been taught responsibility reach puberty it is a
recipe for disaster.  There is probably no other way in which children try
to fill their void and find their maturity than through their sexuality; but
it goes much deeper than that.  The need to be included; to be a part of
something bigger than ourselves; to be accepted and loved for who we are all
factor into the mix.  Can anyone honestly blame them?  When there is a hole
in your heart so big that a freight train could pass through what wouldn't
anyone give to fill that void.  Whether male or female, it goes beyond
percolating hormones, it reaches into the need that we all have, that of
being loved.  And who is to say that sexual intimacy does not create the
illusion of  being bonded and at one with another, because it does create a
bond, and it is real.  The only thing lacking between young sexual partners
is maturity; a maturity that holds them responsible to one another.  Yet how
can they know responsibility when they have never been required to be
responsible; or a maturity that gives them the ability to fulfill in each
other that which they have begun.

I see the doctrine of children not being denied their childhood as having
been construed to the point of denying them their adulthood; construed to
the point where countless thousands are seeking adulthood via sex, gang
violence, and a host of other activities that still. and for always. will
leave them alone, disconnected, and lost from others and themselves as well.
Every one of us is supposed to be both a child and an adult, a perfect
balance of spontaneity and deliberation, play and work; a person both
dependent on others, but with a degree of independence that leaves them both
whole and happy.

Jesus said the truth would make us free, and as a nation we have embraced
the notion of freedom, but we have not comprehended it.  John Adams said
that, "People and nations are forged in the fires of adversity."  We do not
desire truth that makes us uncomfortable, or that requires of us that which
we do not desire to give.  We squawk about children having their childhood
without comprehending that in the depths that lie within us we do not give
them their equality and adulthood because that would require us to be adult,
and how can we give that which we do not have?  Or, we insidiously require
adulthood of children who cannot escape it as it falls to them by default as
parents who refuse to grow up ourselves.  To those poor children we bequeath
a terrible legacy that we do not fathom. "None who have always been free can
understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those
who are not free." (Pearl S. Buck)  As adults we have a need to be happy and
free; but we can only attain those precious items by giving them to someone
else. pray God we give them to our children.  Pray God we give our children
their childhood.

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