Parenting is tough at times.
An unscripted adventure, full of interruptions, tantrums, screams, petulant foot stomping, and when the kids are there, they certainly don’t make it any easier either.
Parenting is not for the faint of heart.
However, if you take the time to reflect and observe your children, or borrow some from time to time, you’ll discover a great deal about yourselves.
Kids have two modes.
They are either childlike or childish.
We have two modes too.
We are either selfless or selfish.
Except for us, we should know better. We are older. Have more experience. Are seasonably wise. With fully developed brains and we have reached an age of maturity, or so we pretend sometimes, and this gives us our ability and wherewithal, to reason and choose to be who we wish to be.
But kids can’t help themselves.
When they get mad they get mad. When they don’t get their way they hate everyone and everything. When they get punished, they feel confused and wrestle with remorse. The younger they are, the faster they set things right. The older they get, the more they resemble us.
They are emotional little creatures.
And God bless them for that.
And God bless whiskey and wine makers.
Kids fight with one other one minute and then become best friends the next.
They also forget a lot. An awful lot. They forgive each other. They let things go. They move on. They get back to the business at hand. They revert to being children and they embrace being alive.
They love everything. They aren’t afraid to fall.
Unless we teach them of course.
Until they learn from others otherwise.
We are a bit more sheepish. A lot more reserved.
We are childish grownups.
We make our beds and lie in them.
Our every decision leads is one way or another.
We are either selflessness or selfish.
We don’t have the ability to rebound well.
Not as well as our children do, which is why we desperately need to return to our second innocence.
We have to crawl our way back.
Back to being a child.
Return to being childlike.
For our divine sake.
Now that we’ve grown, we have to rise like the phoenix from the desert of miseducation. We have to rise and reconnect with things we’ve always wanted to be and do.
Before we grew up and discovered the right way.
The right way to spell. To draw. To dance. To smile and smell.
The right body to have. The right body to covet.
The right way to talk, walk or flock.
The right religion to embrace.
The right war to wage.
The right way to live and die.
We have to find our way back to our innocence.
To being a child. Being childlike.
We have to rediscover that we don’t have to be miserable. That life is indeed fair. That the good shit is not gone.
It’s not. You just can’t see it. You can’t see much when you navel gaze and are too afraid of everything.
But there is hope. There is always hope.
Life is full of opportunity.
There is always a chance. There is always a point.
Life is full of meaning.
To the very end. Available at any time. To anyone. For any reason.
You just have to become a child.
Become childlike.
Abandon being selfish.
Forget being childish.
Be a child.
Discover your second innocence.
There is no third.
