Children tempted
“We. You and me, and people like us. We know what is right and what is wrong. We have strength. Inward strength of some degree. So we are not easily tempted. We have seen something of the world. We know where danger lies. We know something of how to avoid it. But children! You see them moving into areas of temptation. They are young. They may not have the strength to avoid it. They have not been about long enough to recognize the danger signs as we do. I fear for them.
‘What can I do? Think of them all day. And the night as well. Tell them of all the dangers, and I shall make them timid, or drive them from me. Let them face it. Let them suffer. Let them learn by experience. Oh God. I can’t. The experience may be crippling. Criminal. Criminal to do that.
‘I cannot cope. Is it that I should never have had children?”
She is worried. Disturbing impulses stream into her brain. The children sense her anxiety which makes them anxious too. We catch the mood of those around us. If we are calm, the children will take in some of our calmness. Children identify with their parents. Such is the law of nature.
“I know that it is not, but I feel that it is. That it is my fault that my son is the way he is. My fault. The feeling of it lives with me. Something that I must have done while carrying him. I have asked myself a hundred times. I did no evil thing. No neglect that I know of. So why? Why must this be? Somehow, somehow it must be that the fault is mine.”
Many a mother and not a few fathers have thought like this. It is the recurring thought. Somebody must be responsible. Somebody’s fault. It must be mine. I created him. Any imperfection that he shows is surely my doing.
The thought of it occupies her mind, and the messages so induced clog her brain.
Reassurance from an authoritative person may do something to help. But similar reassurance in friendly conversation leaves little impact. More important is that other process of the mind. The understanding, just the understanding, that we cannot know it all.
*10/98/5*
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