Suffer The Little Children
It’s always a revelation when it finally dawns on parents that most of what they love about their children, and most everything that drives them crazy, is merely a genetic reincarnation of themselves. We adore the little dimple we share, and swell with pride when they show the same early inclination to art or music. But their tender fears, their juvenile but unmistakable judgementalism, their fits of selfishness, flashes of anger—what of these?
Our grandchildren have come to spend a week with us. Summer camp has not started and they have nothing to do, would overwhelm two working parents. So camp is happening at Nana & Papa’s house. We take them to baseball games, arcades, museums. We hike and swim. Do arts and crafts. We look forward to these days. The kids—five and nine—are (of course) the delight of our lives, but like all children they have fears, insecurities. They are in an almost continual state of sibling warfare. They can be angelic, just before they turn utterly selfish. When you get to know a child, you begin to see where the selfishness is coming from, where the neediness lives.
The Vietnamese monk, Thich Naht Hanh, offers a guided meditation that I often turn to. In it, he invites the one meditating to see herself as a five year-old child. No matter your age, the five year-old you is still inside. That child, Thich Naht Hanh reminds us in his beautifully broken English, is fragile, vulnerable. Like a tender flower, it can be hurt or damaged, and sometimes there is no one to help it heal. I look at these two children in my home and try to remember the five year-old me. My memories are vague, fragments of images overlaid with free-floating feelings. I rely on my mother’s detailed baby book to piece together clues. By seven and nine my recall sharpens—the happy moments and the times when I felt less-than.
Others may come more quickly to this realization, but it took me a while to recognize that almost all my adult fears and insecurities were there at five, certainly by nine. With Thich Naht Hanh’s help, I can believe that the child is still there within me, and it’s not too late to offer healing and welcome.
“Breathing in, I see myself as a five year-old child.” Pause. “Breathing out, I smile with compassion to my five year-old self.”
Maybe that’s one reason Jesus put a little child in the midst of his quarreling, sniping disciples—to remind them where all this discord began. Two little children have been put in our midst this week, both of them a living, guided meditation.
If you’d like to try that healing meditation, you can find it here.
It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.
So true—that door is always open.
My 10 and 13 year old grandchild just left after a week’s visit and I wish I had read this 10 days ago! Still, driving home from the swimming creek with Billy Joel cranked up , I told them that though they might forget this day because they had many more ahead, I never would because I was with two of my favorite people on a perfect summer afternoon and there was nowhere else on earth I’d rather be. My grandson, who has spent 10 summers now with us, exclaimed, “this is my favorite place on earth!”
My, that sounds idyllic and heavenly!
David, thanks for this. I’m sitting at O’Hare about to fly to a family reunion. I’m 75 and my children are middle-aged. As I read your post I thought: I can still find that 48-year-old child within.
I’ve had that same experience as my children have become adults, knowing exactly where my mind was when I was 40, and all the delights of that age, and all the struggles. Helps me to show compassion to my kids—but I hadn’t thought about the opportunity to—as Thich Naht Hanh says—smile at my 40 year old self.
First week of rehab at Sierra Tucson in 2012 a therapist named Susan asked me what my 6 year old self would say to me today – all I could picture was a little kid looking at me so confused as to how I’d ended up at rehab and I bursted into tears at the decisions that got me there and didn’t stop bawling for an hour. I spent a fair amount of time with that 6 year old my first year in recovery while adjusting to a completely different life. 6 year old seems less confused these days.
Wow—that’s incredibly apropos. That was a remarkably insightful and effective question, as your torrent of tears clearly proved. Cut to your soul.
So good that you can now say that six year-old is not so confused anymore. It just took a major intervention to get your selves talking to each other, making peace with each other.