January 11th 2009

I don't know what child rearing practices were like in the Buddha's day, but I imagine that children were coerced into some sort of respect for their elders.
I was getting quite smug about my growing ability to stay empathetic and calm in trying situations, then a grandchild came to visit. My house of cards collapsed. I am not used to being ordered about by an eight-year-old. I don't take it well. My own children were either afraid of me or sorry for me. In any event they were 'good' kids. My children's children march in freedom to a different drummer. It's not that simple, because they appear to be in a constant search for reaction from their elders. When I was a child I left the house early and returned late. I was out on the marshes and rivers and in the streets. My parents were much too busy leading their lives to bother much about us kids. We grew and learned with our peers. At school we were routinely hit by our teachers if we did not know our work or if we misbehaved. Today most parents are terrified to allow their children out of sight. Every moment is adult supervised. If a teacher so much as speaks loudly to a middle class child he or she is in Big Trouble.

One set of grand-children attended a Buddhist pre-school. It was only a few hours a day, but it did seem to create a little gentleness. Not much though. I think that children should be forced into a code of acceptable behavior in society, but left to shift for themselves among their peers for as much time as possible. As they grow, society will close in on them, at school and work and with their own families. The Code will take over, but what they learned in their childhood among their peers will teach them the law of tooth and claw that seems to underlie most of our behaviors. Perhaps they will also have learned their own inner tenderness and creativity.