The other day, at dinner with my friend, we were talking about her children. Mine are already teenagers, but yours are still children. I enjoy listening to it because, without wanting to, I am transported to that childhood of mine.
A childhood that has passed so quickly and that sometimes I think about how I would have liked to live with the experience I have right now.
And when I talk about experience I am not referring to my courses, training, or professional practice, but rather I am talking about the transforming experience of God.
The encounter with Him changed everything to move from the old to the new. To live myself and live differently. With amazement at everyday life. With a much deeper look and with a north. A sense.
We were talking about how to educate them well in this turbulent and empty world. What can parents do about the environment we have? Because it is clear that the environment also educates and that given the culture that surrounds us, we have two options: either be abducted and with it, our children or fight, going against the current.
The first is not an option for me, even though it has been for a long time (before the “Encounter”). Not out of malice or intention, but because of the drowsiness or anesthetic state in which he lived. Very concerned about the things of the world and little about those of the soul. Very busy in the material and not at all in the spiritual. Without malice, but that’s how it went.
The second, which is the one I want to choose and choose, is not easy. It means being labeled as a weirdo or an ultra something (ultra-fashion, ultra-Catholic, ultra-right…) and of course, you risk cancellation. This, perhaps, does not matter to oneself because in his path of life he has seen that what has to matter is what God thinks of him and not the world, but it is not at all easy to convey to children or young people. .
Like everything, the sooner you start, the better. It is much easier in children than in young people, where the social aspect and recognition of the group of friends is essential and feeling strange or outside the group is not usually an option.
But how do you do it when everything around you talks about the same thing? How to educate your children when they get home?
Mother Teresa of Calcutta said: “Don’t worry because your children don’t listen to you, they watch you all day long.”
The home, the family, the parents are a key, fundamental and essential piece in this education and for that there has to be a home, family and a father and mother present, not absent.
A place where what prevails is the testimony of those parents who do what they say. Because if you tell your child not to scream, but then he sees you scream, what he has left and what you educate him in is screaming.
A safe place where you are loved just as you are, with your weaknesses and your strengths, and where he looks at you and listens to you.
Because education is not about your children speaking many languages or getting very good grades. No, education goes further. That is instructing them in knowledge and for that part, they have teachers. (Another thing, and one that I may write about at another time, is that we also need teachers who are educators and not merely instructors)
Education is about teaching them to be. In showing them that their life has a meaning and that this is not just accumulating knowledge or things. It’s about them seeing that their parents live a meaningful life, that they are there for them, and that they have more goals than changing cars.
Today we are witnessing a fierce and voracious battle against the family and that is where we must entrench ourselves and fight tooth and nail to defend it.
If our children do not have a safe home. A home where they can observe what love truly is as dedication and sacrifice for the other. A place where suffering is welcomed and accompanied… if this ceases to exist, we are doomed to more suicides, more tranquilizers and anxiolytics and more unhappiness.
Knowing that every day is a gift and that routine has great value if we know how to give it, makes those, 1440 minutes on a Monday or Tuesday worth it.
Knowing that we are the protagonists of our lives, that we do not go alone and that the path is worth it, is essential to not get bogged down by reality.
But what is truly essential is that they see it in you and me, every day. May we witness it with our lives and not with our words. We are.
For me, God is a key piece, but, even if you don’t have faith, think about it: Who has left a mark on your life? Those who have given you many sermons or from whom you have seen a coherent testimony of life?
Faced with today’s society, in what attitude do you live? What do your children see in you?
