This month’s article speaks of entrusting our children to the institutions that are part of our society. It begins innocently talking about the beauty of the little being we bring into the world and moves to the idea that our love story consists of zeniths and nadirs, and love necessitates “looking outward in the same direction”. May your new year find you open to the universe and what it has to offer for your love story.
Love Story
You bring a new life into the world. You know how perfect the child is. You see bits and pieces of other loved ones. As the months pass, you figure out how to tread down paths read about, heard about, talked about, but not real until you set foot on the path as parents have done throughout time. Some of what you do comes from deep within you – that happens without thought; it comes from how you feel. Other things you do are a reflection of how you’ve seen things done – maybe from your own family, maybe from peers, or in this day and age, images from farther away in books, online, television, radio, workshops.
Months pass into years and you see those same pieces of loved ones (don’t those eyes look just like grampa’s?). What you do still comes from deep within you, but now the possibilities are choices affected by what you can provide.
Part of raising them is trusting them to our institutions, one of which is education. It’s heart wrenching and exciting for us; an extension of letting go and testing who we are as much as who they are; filled with all the confidences and self doubts that We bring to it. The WE is a collective We – the institution of education, our choices of where, how, the educators we entrust – filled with all the confidences and self doubts We bring to it.
It is impossible to underestimate the importance of what happens in school—doorway to their future. Just as with your very first reactions to being a parent, some of what you do as part of your child’s education and what you feel happens without thought. Other things you do are a reflection of how you’ve seen things done – maybe from your own family, maybe from peers, or in this day and age, images from farther away in books, online, television, radio, workshops.
No matter where your reaction or action comes from, it is part of an ongoing love story. Every love story has heights and depths, joys and despair, sometimes ordinary and sometimes spectacular. Your part in the education of your child is a true love story. Ovid said “Love is a kind of warfare”. Antoine De Saint-Exupery said “Life has taught us that love does not consist of gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction”—to tread the paths of our world. As you both grow, be sure to share your love with those responsible for helping your child be successful in any education setting from playdates to preschool and beyond to create your own love story by being sure you are all “…looking outward together in the same direction”.
