Dear friends,
At last, what we were fearing about is here. Yes, the snow. The ‘white stuff’ is here and we need to face it whether we want or not. It may have some adverse effects on some farmers. We continue to pray for them and hope things would be better for them.
I was once standing in a line to buy ticket in front of a movie theatre. People were there along with me. There was one particular man standing in the line with a small kid on his shoulder. The child boy was looking at the people around him. Of course, a candy vendor caught hold of his sight. The boy asked his dad to buy candies for him. The man did not care much about what the little boy was saying. Again, the boy asked him little loudly for candies. The dad kept silent. The boy seemed to become more and more demanding and started pestering the man. At one point the boy started yelling and screaming asking for the candy. The dad kept his cool. I was watching the scene for a while and I got a kind of upset with the man for not buying him a candy.
After I came out of the theatre the scene again came to my mind. I started looking at the same scene from the point of view of the man. I consider that the man followed a good technique of parenting. I would think that one of the techniques of parenting would be to say no to the child. The children should learn to accept a no from anyone, including from the parents. The world is not going to be offering whatever one wants. There will be times when we may not get what we want or what we need. This learning to accept a no would make the mind mature. If the children do not learn this lesson, when they grow up to be adults and come to a state where they may have to face a no from someone for the first time, the effect would be adverse. The reaction of the person also might become destructive and disruptive. This scenario is not good either for that individual or for the society where the person lives in.
Another aspect of this technique of parenting is that, the children who get anything when they think they want it tend to grow without realizing the value or worth of what they get and what others may not get. For instance, the child who gets money whenever the child thinks he/she wants it, will grow up to be one who may not know the value of money. When one does not know the value of something, one would not be able to appreciate that. This is not going to be good in any way. A child who grows up learning to accept a no from anyone will grow up an adult who would be mature and with a great sense of appreciation.
When I say this, I don’t mean to say no to any child just for no reason. I would like the children to grow in a real world. Real world is not filled with everything to everyone. We must learn to live in abundance and in poverty. If we learn it, we will be happy even when we do not get what we need or want. That is the way to keep ourselves content and happy all the time. If we do not learn this, we will be disappointed and unhappy more than anyone who has learnt this technique.
Learn to live without something and that will teach us how to live with that something.
God bless.
Yours sincerely in Christ Jesus,
Fr. A. Antony
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