Wheel of Time

A child was born on Thursday. A healthy, 7 lb, 2 oz baby girl. Beautiful, perfectly formed with teeny fingers and even teenier toes. My niece.

Families grow, as do children. As time passes, people mature, learn from mistakes and experiences, become more whole and full. I feel that maturity is not an issue of age, but of experience. If people do not evolve from their experiences into better informed humans, they have stunted their growth. I look around at how many self-help books there are, how many new "issues" and therapies are out there for people to either confront themselves or direct the blame everywhere else for the problems they have. I see how many Dr. Phil types are out there claiming to be able to solve problems or weight, romance, debt, marriages etc., much as medicine men sold moonshine in the Old West to gullible folks with no more than common growing pains, whether they be physical or emotional. And I am completely disgusted with the Fall of Mankind as I witness it.

This child is an innocent. She relies entirely on her parents, as do all children.

What are the methods by which someone can raise a child in this sick, sick world, without her being scarred by television and movies, violence in schools and the pathologies of other parents and children she comes across? How do you give her the tools to get through life even with people who are going to try to hurt her and be cruel - though you try to shelter her as much as possible - so that she can also take care of herself and defend her heart? How do you instill in a child the comfidence and sense of Self to withstand the peer pressure of whatever dangerous thing is "in" at the time - be it drinking, drugs or other forms of teenage sport which tends to kill teenagers? How do you teach tolerance to a child, yet shield her from racism and bigotry at the same time - though those elements also come with the lessons of Diversity? How do you ask a child to respect and take care of nature, when governments and people around the world work determinedly to rape the earth of all her riches, and kill everything that is not Human? How do parents overcome their own fears and anxieties in order to encourage growth in the child, without transferring those fears? How do you create security in a world where cat burglars climb into your window as easily as if it were a playground, and take every precious thing you own?

I do not know the answers. And until I too am a parent, I may not need to know them.

But when I was holding that precious little flame of life in my arms, my heart wished for her that she know no conflict, only joy, love, security and peace.