The Child is Father of Man: A Mother's Take

The best teachers learn from their pupils.

The best parents learn from their children.

Why not.

A child is honest and unimpressed. He says unabashedly that the "emperor has no clothes."

A child is curious. Tell him that God made him and all other people, and he would want to know who made God.

A child is simple. He asks questions. He isn't afraid to say he doesn't know.

A child has a gift of wonder. His heart leaps up when he sees a rainbow painting the sky or a lizard trying to catch a fly.

A child is fearless. He doesn't yet know that strange-looking people are not to be trusted.

A child knows how to love indiscriminately. He loves the kid next door even if he lives in a shanty and doesn't have gameboy and tv. He loves pets even if they drool, are unruly, and smell funny.

A child is intuitive. He senses when he is truly loved. He feels beyond the mouthed "I love you's" and the token hugs and kisses.

A child knows ... he simply knows.

Why is childhood a metaphor of the human ability to see what is true and good and real? Why does the child intuitively understand nature and the universe? Is it because he is still connected with pre-birth existence? Or because he has a mind yet uncorrupted by so-called reason?

I really don't know.

All I know is that I have children:

• Who taught me to welcome cats and dogs into my house, even and especially when they are stray, abandoned, and dirty.
  
• Who made me believe they had seen and talked with God as children although they do not remember how the conversation went.
  
• Who had, as children, enigmatic friends suspiciously named Morfan, Karmol and Duchay who I never met but curiously learned to like.
  
• Who asked, when I insisted they went to church, whether God wouldn't have liked it better if they helped someone sad or hard up.
  
• Who told me I would have been a cooler mom if I knew how to listen more.
  
• Who, when I fretted over a few thousand pesos filched from my wallet, urged me to forget it "because it's only money."
  
• Who would tease me sometimes "to go, get a life."

Not too long ago, I was as usual brooding over slights (real and imagined) and problems (present and to come). My older daughter noticed, sat opposite me, and said: "Hang loose, Mommy. Look at me, I am always happy." "Really," I shot back, "Are you happy when you get tres and cinco in your class cards?" "Well," she laughed, "I'd be down for a while but not for long."

"Come here," I told her. "Let me hold your hand," hoping against hope that by some osmotic process her gift of happiness would rub off on me. As we sat, hands linked, I began to feel ... uhmm ... almost happy.

Photo/image credit: stockxpert

Note:

I pass foward the kindness of bloggers -- who said a good word about me to their buddies when I was a newbie -- by recommending in turn this splendid new site:

http://maningningnabituin-bituingmarikit.blogspot.com/

She has four sites; i think you should choose bituingmarikit, where her pieces are homesick, nostalgic, poetic and all those superbics. She wants to link up with pinoy bloggers .. especially those in "diaspora" like her. Kakaiba ang blogs nya ... patula, pinoy na pinoy ang drama.