“Children are living messages we send to a time and place we will never see.”[i]
Loving our children and preparing them for life is the way that we have a huge impact upon the future. Allowing them to grow from childhood to healthy adulthood requires wisdom and dedication. It requires that we use our wisdom to discern the things to which they should be exposed. Children should not be exposed to adult issues, nor should they be expected to make decisions that should be made by adults. They can’t. They do not have the ability to process adult issues and exposing them at too young an age can only add to the burden on their tender shoulders.
I enjoyed reading about the life of Corrie Ten Boom. She wrote this touching memory of a conversation with her father on the train.
“So the line had stuck in my head. “Sex,” I was pretty sure, meant whether you were a boy or girl, and “sin” made Tante Jans very angry, but what the two together meant, I could not imagine. And so, seated next to Father in the train compartment, I suddenly asked, “Father, what is sexsin?”
He turned to look at me, as he always did when answering a question, but to my surprise he said nothing. At last he stood up, lifted his traveling case from the rack over our heads, and set it on the floor.
“Will you carry it off the train, Corrie?” he said.
I stood up and tugged at it. It was crammed with the watches and spare parts he had purchased that morning.
“It’s too heavy,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “And it would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load. It’s the same way, Corrie, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger you can bear it. For now you must trust me to carry it for you.”– from The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom[ii]
This touched me so. After reading, I remembered times I might have asked my children to carry a load that was too heavy for them. I certainly remember times when as a child, I was asked to carry loads that were much too heavy for me. Our parents did the best they knew. They didn’t know that many of the things they said or shared would be incredibly difficult for a child to know or carry.
The thing is, though, we do know better now. While we certainly want our children to grow and experience life at the appropriate time, we don’t want to burden them by asking them to take on issues or responsibilities that are above their ability to process.
Sometimes, we ask children to carry loads that are much too heavy for them. They should not be forced, as children, to see and sense the world through the eyes and ears of adults. Innocence is worth protecting and worth fighting for. We need to do our part as parents and caregivers to carry certain things for them until they are old enough to handle the load. We must make sure they are receiving the needed time and space for growing and becoming healthy adults.
There are so many problems in the world today and so many children who need their burdens lightened. If we can help just one, just one child, whether our child or that of another, we help the world. The question also arises, “Aren’t they all our children?” The song created for World’s Children’s Day says it all.[iii]
“Aren’t they all our children, and shouldn’t we help them with their burdens?” Lovingly, JudyV
[i] https://betweenletters.quora.com/Children-are-the-living-messages-Neil-Postman
[ii] https://www.corrietenboom.com/en/information/the-history-of-the-museum
[iii] (1321) World Children’s Day – Aren’t They All Our Children Now – Celine Dion – YouTube