What Do You Want For Your Children?

Four young boys sit on the side of a river in the Borneo jungle washing their school uniforms after a morning at school.  The white sneakers are the cleanest pair of shoes I think I have ever seen.  There is no washing machine, it's not mum's job to wash their clothes and they out of sight of house and mother.  Their joy for life is obvious for all who see them.  There is no designer labels, no electronic gadgets and no adult watching to keep them safe.

Yet they are content with their lot in life.  As one of the young men with us said as he witnessed the one room,weather-beaten cottage another family of four smiling children lived in, 'They live there.  And they are happy.' I think he got it.

Contentment is your feet in the water.

What do you want for your children?  The popular answer seems to be I want them to be happy, safe and my friends.  This always strikes me as a 'me first' response and not focussed on our children and their needs if they are to grow up into adults and not children masquerading as adults.  We have too many of those now.

So let's see why I think this way. A definition for happiness is, according to Princeton University, the 'state of well-being characterised by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy'.  This seems as far as possible from the 'me first' feelings that is promoted as happiness as possible.  It is about a state of well-being - of all being well with my world regardless of what is happening.  It is the state of being able to do the daily round of life without seeking a short term hit of 'happiness' which fades and needs renewal. The range is from 'well, this is the way it is and that's ok' through to 'wow, this amazing and that's ok, too'.  But it is the capacity to find joy in life regardless of what that life maybe.

In terms of being safe, Merriam-Webster suggests it is 'the condition of being safe from undergoing or causing hurt, injury, or loss'. If this is what we want for our children, not only does it seem an impossible quest for human beings, it seems to designed to keep them as children.  Without risk and the possibility of harming and being harmed, how do we grow and learn what ours and others boundaries are? Without people stepping outside the boundaries of safe, little of the things and experiences we enjoy would exist.  I doubt that we take this idea of keeping our children safe seriously when we put them on a terrifying ride at a theme park, tie them into a bungey harness, give them a motorcycle at five, or teach them to ride a pushbike.  These all have risks, but we seem to think they are o.k.  Life has risks and we can not keep our children safe, simply teach them how to make good decisions in the light of circumstances, peers and options. On the way to that place, they will take risks, get hurt and hurt, but that's o.k. for thats how we become adults living in an adult world.

Lastly, we want them to be our friends. There is something concerning when parents say their nine year old, or even scarier, heir fourteen year old is their best friend.  Parents are parents and their children are their responsibility.  Parents must parent and not be friends, they have enough friends, they do not need an adult acting as one. (Wow, did I really say that?)  

What they need are parents who set boundaries, set the example for acceptable behaviour and who are consistent.  This starts from the day they are born and goes on until they have families of their own. They respect that. And it's respect you need when they are still your children.  There is time enough to be friends when they have grown up and become adults.  Now they are looking to you for wisdom, direction and discipline, by discipline I don't mean punishment, I mean the discipline to remain an adult and a parent and not to cross the line and become a geriatric teenager in the hope you can stop them growing up.

And that is why being a parent is not just about having children, it is about staying in relationship with them as the parent, guide and mentor.  If you do this, you will be their friend.

(For more photos like this go to http://sandakan-deathmarch.com/ and click on gallery)

Rhinoceritis

Watching the evening news it is easy to become immune to the noise, violence, inhumanity and injustice, and to act as if there is nothing that can be done.  Specifically, not a thing that I can do to resolve the issues in the world.

We are bombarded with the noisy chatter of negative to such an extent that we too can become as negative as those around us and become just like them.  The constant belittling and personal attacks of politics, reality shows like Big Brother and the numerous so-called talent shows, the senseless violence of movies, language and sport leaves us numb to what is happening all around us. 

It is interesting to hear the students response to the drugs in cycling fiasco.  Almost all see little wrong with it because everyone was doing it, and if you wanted to win then it was ok to do the same.  When quizzed about Tiger Woods 'cheating', that too seemed to be ok because it was his personal life and didn't affect his professional capabilities. This was reflected across years 7 -10 and, although not unanimous, it was the majority view.

Eugene Ionesco, a playwright from the theatre of the absurd wrote a play called Rhinoceros in 1959. Over the course of three acts, the inhabitants of a small, provincial French town turn into rhinoceroses; ultimately the only human who does not succumb to this mass metamorphosis is the central character, Bérenger, a flustered everyman figure who is often criticized throughout the play for his drinking and tardiness. The play is often read as a response and criticism to the sudden upsurge of Communism, Fascism and Nazism during the events preceding World War II, and explores the themes of conformity, culture, mass movements, philosophy and morality.

Thomas Merton coined the word, ‘rhinoceritis’ in 'Rain and the Rhinoceros'  to describe what he say happening in the world of the 1960’s, a world of the threat of a nuclear war, the Vietnam war, civil rights violence in America and the rise of technology which was dehumanising  people.  He saw that it had become so easy for people to live as individuals inside the dehumanising collective mass of people who simply gave up and followed.  He challenge society to move a way from individualism as a an option and to move towards community and responsibility for self and others.

The collective mass, in his view, was easily lead by the promises of advertising, technology and security, because it simply was to hard to take a stand.  Comfort and safety and security came from not making a decision. Like the protagonists in Ionesco’s play, people were simply following the herd.

Has anything changed?  Have we heard the call to step out of the crowd and to take a stand?

What do you think?  Love to to hear you thoughts.  Comments welcome.

Polio Victim Walks the Sandakan to Ranau Death March

In the shadow of Mt Kinabalu dominating the Sabah skyline, I and small group of young people, parents and teachers, walked some 90 k's in the footsteps of the Australian soldiers who perished on the Sandakan to Ranau death marches at the end of WWII.

This is the second time I have taken part in this trek(walked in 2010) but the first time I completed the march as a polio victim, the first such person to do so. That is strange, you may say to yourself, surely you haven't just contracted polio in the last 2 years?

No, I haven't. But the answer is I only just realised I had polio as a child and no one told me that I did. Unbelievable? No. There are many others like me for whom this is their experience. I will tell you my story.

In July I had a fall and broke 2 ribs.  Walking down 2 steps, my left leg gave way and I fell. This was not the first time this had happened. It had been happening a lot especially when I was tired, running or changing directions.

A week later it happened again. This time I was carrying my cup and plate back in a coffee shop when I went down, smashing everything I was carrying. The next day I went to a boot maker to get some new red boots made.  I said to her that I had a dodgy leg due to a sporting accident and that's why my leg was 'odd'.  She replied, 'It is not your accident but your disability which is the problem.'

I said nothing but thought, 'What disability?'

On the way home I began thinking and remembered a story about my mother finding me outside unable to walk. Apparently I was bedridden for sometime before getting back on my feet.

When I spoke to my parents and questioned them, my father said, 'We didn't talk about it much, but yes, you had polio, spent sometime in hospital.' Mum said I always walked funny and fell over a lot when I played sport.

Then I spoke to my best friend from school who also said I walked funny, and when he asked his sister her first comment was, 'Yes, did he have polio?'

It appears I was the last to know. Some 53 years later I found out. By accident.

One could get angry about not knowing, yet if I had would I have walked the track, gone to sea on warships, played grade cricket, hockey and football?  Would I have travelled around the world and believed all was possible? Would I have studied at the Marcel Marceau school of mime in Paris?Probably not.

Yet the consequences of not knowing is that I have not known the reason for the incredible tiredness, sleep apnoea, muscle soreness, 'blue feet', sore fingers and toes and more, such as the anxiety attacks and depression. Perhaps I would have been a little kinder to my self and not tried to be 'normal'. Perhaps I would have known why I was a type A personality. Perhaps I would have avoided the bullying I suffered at school. Who knows?

What I do know, now I know, that I can still do 'stuff', but just a little slower, a little gentler and with a little more awareness of my body's needs.

In Borneo I walked at my pace, was often the last one in to rest breaks, felt no need to keep up with the others, rested when I needed to, went to bed early, ate sensibly, drank lots of water and generally cared for myself in a way I have not done before.  And I walked the gruelling 90 odd k's.  It hurt and it was hard, but I did it.

For more information on post polio syndrome go to www.polioaustralia.org.au