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Freedom and Respect: Parenting as a Spiritual Jew, Part III Freedom and respect are two sides of the same coin in parenting. When I grant my children freedom to be children, to be fully human, to express their unique emotions and ideas, I am showing them that I respect their feelings and thoughts. By example, this teaches them to love and respect others because they know how good they feel when they are loved and respected in this way. |
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In Parenting as Spiritual Jew, Part 2, I spoke about the existential and spiritual difficulties of truly respecting others. With parenting, one key element to respecting kids is a shift in perspective. Many people quote Kahlil Gibran on parenting, because he gives the right perspective to encourage this deep respect for one’s children. You probably know the quote, it begins “Your children are not your children./They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself./They come through you but not from you,/And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.” Another great writer on parenting is Osho, whom I am reading in his book “Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself”. In speaking about the need to respect our children, he writes: “The child is a guest from the unknown, and you have to be respectful to the guest. Parents who are not respectful to their children are bound to destroy their lives. Your respect, your love, your gratitude that, “You have chosen us as your parents,” will be responded to with deeper respect, more gratitude, more love.” (Osho, p. 71) He continues with an entreaty that we give our children freedom: “Let your child have his original face. It may create fear in you, in may create concern in you, but those are your problems. Don’t in any way inhibit the child. And a child who has been given freedom – even against his own parents – will respect you forever, will remain grateful to you forever. Right now, just the opposite is the case: every child is full of anger, rage, hatred for the parents, because what they have done to him is unforgivable. So by giving freedom, by allowing the child to be himself whatever that means, accepting him in his natural self wherever it leads, you are creating a child who will love and respect you. You have been not only ordinary fathers and mothers, you have been givers of life, freedom, uniqueness.” (Osho, p. 75) In other words, freedom and respect are two sides of the same coin in parenting! When I grant my children freedom to be children, to be fully human, to express their unique emotions and ideas, I am showing them that I respect their feelings and thoughts. By example, this teaches them to love and respect others because they know how good they feel when they are loved and respected in this way. This also explains why giving children the space at home to run around and be crazy and wild helps them to keep their behavior under control in public. They are eager and willing to respect the public space and community because they know about respect firsthand. On the other hand, children must learn about limits. With their undeveloped egos, they are naturally self-centered and will not naturally restrain themselves for the sake of others. Wendy Mogel, PH.D., celebrated Jewish author of the parenting book "The Blessing of the Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Techniques to Raise Self-Reliant Children", looks to Judaism for wisdom on teaching children limits. She draws on one of my favorite themes when she explains that parents are holy stand-ins who bring God's work into the universe of their families. When the Israelites accepted God's Torah, they stated "We will do and we will hear/understand" (Exodus 24:7). Mogel says children must do the same. "We try so hard to get the children to understand our reasons for everything instead of treating some mandates as being divinely commanded," she said. "Some parents are inhibited about taking on this very dignified mantle of parenting because they have such deep respect for their children. It's really a paradox. These little creatures are so thoughtful and bright and such skilled wordsmiths and can argue their case so well, so we just lie down. And that makes them anxious." Rather, parents should emulate God in first and foremost establishing authority, for its own sake. As the Ten Commandments begin: "I am the Lord your God." All else flows from that. The philosophy we embrace on creating limits in our home is called “family-centered parenting”. In this philosophy, neither the parents nor the children are center, more important than the others. The most important entity is the family itself. Our goal is teaching and learning and displaying respect for each other and the home. This respect is then extended outward to the world around us. The Jewish ideal of welcoming guests and treating them like royalty is an example of how we try to extend respect beyond the family. Another vital example of teaching respect is our sacred family time centered around Judaism. This brings us together for a higher purpose and makes us a family of equals all facing God. This also eliminates power struggles because we are all serving God, not each other. One of the most wonderful aspects of serving God together is that children, having lived in society for less time, have a closer relationship to God and the spiritual than most adults. When Alon and I open our eyes to our children, we find they have so much to teach us about the sacred. Being listened to gives them a sense of personal value and teaches them to trust in their essential natures and their intuitive feelings for the sacred. Thus their value in the family grows. Freedom and respect, two sides of the same coin: show me respect by giving me the freedom to be myself. As each of us learns to be more and more fully ourselves, we can serve God from our particular strengths and gifts, and inhabit the place in the world meant specifically for us. | |||||||
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