That the world seems to spin faster every day is nothing new. The pace of life is increasingly frantic and it seems that we live quickly waiting for the next step.
When a child is born, parents tend to think they know nothing, that they come as a blank notebook in which we must write to learn and always waiting for them to mature quickly so they stop crying, so they start sleeping more, to to become more autonomous and in short so that they adapt to our pace of life as soon as possible.
In this process in which we try to dump our being into them, therefore trying to be like us, we do not think (in fact, no one can think of it) that they have more to teach us than we do to them.
Only because we are adults, bigger, taller and stronger, owners of information that they lack we believe, since they were born, that our mission is to make them as we are.
And who are we?
This is where the dilemma is. Few people (and sadly I don't think I can include myself in this group) really know who they are.
In other words, we try to make our children like us without thinking about ourselves, how far we have come or what is the state of our inner life, our emotional balance or our self-esteem.
This makes people full of complexes, worries, a rhythm of life from which they would like to be able to flee, with a questionable level of self-esteem, with vices and obsessions that they would like to eliminate and with a few emotional wounds caused by people who at the time also they had their own are fighting, day after day, to make the children a person similar to them, similar, that does not quit and, therefore, with the same defects.
Know yourself
I know it may sound like Power point taken from a chain email, but The best way to be a good mother is to know yourself, take the handbrake, take an inner journey observing all the layers and hearts that cover the innocence with which you were born, the wounds that remain uncured, the childhood problems that you could not face because you were small and that produce a stomach knot if you remember them, bad habits, vices and obsessions that you would like to part with and of course, everything that makes you feel good, that not all of our being is negative.
Through that trip you can start being honest with yourself and, above all, you may be able to see that your children's path does not have to be the same as you walked, not the same as now you walk.
Learn from them
"What can I learn from a child, if he doesn't even talk?" Anyone could ask. Well, very much. The problem is that we have stopped being children, we have forgotten what it meant to be one of them. We have stopped perceiving the world with the five senses and soaking ourselves in the joy that is offered to us every day and we no longer know how to enjoy everyday life.
We have grown up trying to be stronger, smarter, stronger and more impenetrable to survive. Thus we have achieved our level of success, which is what is valued in people, but we have lost joy, creativity, spontaneity and freedom.
We have struggled so much to create our own strength, we have closed ourselves so much that, unintentionally, we have begun to die inside, living a life in which we do not know almost love, trying to love ourselves and in which we do not want to compromise or expose ourselves to others for fear of suffering (closing even more).
Children are born with everything that we have left along the way: they are free, creative, spontaneous and overflowing with joy and innocence.
In a better world parents should try to teach less and learn more. In a better world, parents should try to see the world through their children's eyes, to know themselves through childhood that they no longer remember, but lived. Perhaps so remember all those characteristics that made them happier and recover some of them.
Photos | Flickr - AdamSelwood, Inferis
In Babies and more | Do we let children be children ?, Your children are not yours, Video: children are our teachers, Being a dad: It will change your life, Welcome to planet Earth (video)
