In Defense of Being a Kid

Taking a momentary rabbit trail away from Cline/Fay I'm intrigued, as many are, by the "tiger Mom" phenomenon. Amy Chua is clearly hitting a nerve. Larry Summers (former President of Harvard and the Obama administration) debated Ms Chua at the World Economic Forum in Davos and asserted that part of the point of childhood is childhood itself. Childhood takes up a quarter of one's life, Summers observed, and thinks it would be nice if children got to enjoy it. James Bernard Murphy, professor of government at Dartmouth College, is cheering Summers' insight. He says, "Children are not merely adults in training. They are also people with distinctive powers and joys. A happy childhood is measured not only by the standards of adult success, but also by the enjoyment of the gifts given to children alone. He then states 4 unique blessings of childhood. 1) gift of moral innocence. Young children are liberated from the knowledge of the full extent of human evil - a knowledge that casts a pall over adult life. This innocence permits children to trust others fully and teaches us what the world ought to be. 2) gift of openness to the future. Adults are hamstrung by our own plans and expectations but children are free to welcome the most improbable new adventures. 3) children are liberated from the grim economy of time. Losing all sense of time means time is not scarce and thus cannot be wasted. 4) parents are focused on adult superiority and therefore forget that most of us produced our best art, asked our deepest philosophical questions, and most readily mastered new gadgets when we were children. Tragically, there is a real conflict within childhood between preparation for adulthood and the enjoyment of the gifts of youth. Preparation for adulthood requires the adoption of adult prudence, discipline and planning that undermine the spontaneous adventure of childhood. Parents are deeply conflicted about how to balance these two basic demands: raising good little ladies and gentlemen, while also permitting children to escape into the irresponsible joys of Neverland." He goes on to note the divergence of opinion from Aristotle, who thought the best thing about childhood was leaving it behind to Jesus, who said "unless you become like a little child you cannot enter the kingdom of God." Should our kids have a Tom Sawyer like adventure or be in training to take over the world? Murphy says most parents are stuck trying to balance the paradoxical demands of both preparing our children for adulthood and protecting them from it. He thinks many parents today would benefit hugely by taking a reflective time out from teaching our children to discover how much we might learn from them. Here's my take. I thought he had some pretty insightful comments but I'm wrestling with the last one. It could be argued that one can take a mental time out to reflect but parents need to realize that they're always teaching their children because children are always watching and thus, learning. I feel extremely blessed because I was one of six children.... and in the middle no less. It was easy to "disappear" for periods of time and live in a Tom Sawyer like adventure of my own creation. Inevitably, it came to an end as I was called in to supper, get ready for bed, school, church etc. In those moments of family time I was painfully aware of and empathetic to real world problems my parents faced.... especially financial. Yet, no matter how poor we were and what we lived without I watched my parents tithe. I didn't know this was a big deal until I took a neighbor friend to church one Sunday whose parents were much better off financially. His folks gave him a dollar to put in the offering and he was stunned at how much my folks gave. He was also surprised that my folks gave each of us money for Sunday School offering while not receiving any allowance even though we all had mandated household chores. Later on, I got my first paying job delivering newspapers and my Dad sat me down at the kitchen table the first Saturday I came home from collecting for that week's papers. I received my first instruction on tithing and, more importantly, trusting God as Dad divided my earnings into what I owed the Star Gazette, what I owed to God and what I could keep. I was taught that it was all God's anyway and I was just giving Him back a portion of that which I had received. It was an easy lesson to understand and accept because of my parents teaching by example. I never worried about my parents financial issues or any other issues because I fully trusted that they trusted God and that would make everything all right. Maybe that's what Jesus meant when He said, "you must become like a little child."