[MD] Teach your Children Good

[John Carl]

You
who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so
become yourself
Because the past is just a good-bye

Don't inflict your belief systems upon their little minds for your own
purposes, tho.  Mary will accuse you of child abuse.

It's something that's been rolling around in my echoing skull, ever since
Mary postulated the idea that teaching little kids about Jesus in Sunday
School is child abuse.

You have to admire the rhetorical effect of such a statement!  It's really
stayed with me.  Mainly because I want to argue with it.  But first, I have
to come to grips with it and acknowledge the part of the statement that is
true.  True because the past is, just a goodbye and forcing kids into seats
they don't wanna sit in, to listen to crap they've heard a hundred times
before, week in, week out....

Well if it's not child abuse, it sure feels like it to the child.

Teach your children well
Their father's hell
Will slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick
The one you'll know by.


Now I considered the counter proposition, that forcing them to be atheists
before their little minds can even cope with metaphysics, because you've got
some agenda or purpose of your own, is also child abuse.  I'd say any
infliction of a parent's problems upon the next generation, simply for the
purpose of ameliorating some life-problem of the parent, is a good starting
proposal for this particular defined form of "child abuse" that we're
discussing.

It's not all about beating them with cords cuz of the poopy diaper
screaming.  Using them to prop up your own side of a battle with your
spouse, would also be child abuse, no?

And on those terms, we're all guilty.  I mean, I know I am.  And I see it
all around me.


Don't you ever ask them why
If they told you, you would cry
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you.


 So here's the ideal I came up with while ruminating on Mother's Day, while
doing the dishes.

(shout out to Lu, man, I hate doing the dishes and its embarrassing whinging
at a task you perform about a hundred times a year)

(shout out to George Sessions - You were right, doing dishes is a good time
for meditation)(

Our children need some sort of structure with which to build a life, a self,
a plan.  They get that from us first.  As a parent, its our task to pay
attention and do this the best we can; which is NOT handing them over to
some institution, simply because we're lazy and don't wanna face our task.
 Or even worse, plopping them in front of a tv.  Owning a tv IS child abuse.


So we give them the best structure we can, but add the caveat that its only
relative to our understanding and world.  And they are going to have to
figure out for themselves one day, how to view the world.  To awaken our
children early on to taking moral responsibility for themselves, for paying
attention to what is out there, not by forcing it upon them in church or
school, but honestly and with all sincerity admitting that we don't know
everything.  Maybe there is a God.  Maybe there is not.  Such questions
seems almost by definition to be way beyond me.  All I can say is what works
for me right now, in the moment.

You, my children, must penetrate such mysteries for yourself.

And you, of tender years
Can't know the fears
That your elders grew by
And so please help them with your youth
They seek the truth
Before they can die.
  ....



  And feed them on your dreams