From the mouths of babes

It’s funny that we often laugh at the things children say. We laugh because a lot of the time, the things children say are either way out of context or are just plain hilarious. Listening to a child explain the wonders of Christmas to us, or even having them explaining the meaning of life can be so revealing.

While watching my daughter, Lilyana, grow up, I’ve become acutely aware of just how much she has been teaching me, not just about myself, but also of the world around us and how we see it.  I think there are many lessons to be learned from our children.  I think as parents, or even as grown ups, we lose sight of just how insignificant some of the things we stress about really are.

Children don’t hold grudges. This is something I see almost every day from my daughter. I can take stuff away from her again and again, stuff she shouldn’t have in the first place. Sure, she cries but she inevitably forgets all about it and is soon looking for the next thing to play with. I’ve inadvertently given her food that was just that little bit too hot for her. After removing said food from her mouth, and calming her down after she inevitably screams in pain, she is right there and waiting for the next mouthful.  She doesn’t expect the next mouthful to burn her, even though the one she just had did. She simply moves on. As so many psychiatrists and therapists would say, she lives in the moment. As adults, we linger far too long on things that just don’t matter. Something someone said or did to us. All too often we linger on it, fester on it, dissect it, analyze it. And for what? Is there really any point in this behavior? Does it improve our lives any? I think not. Sure, there are lessons to be learned but festering on stuff just doesn’t help anyone and in the long run, only hurts you.

Children don’t need the fanciest toys to be happy. I remember being just 7 years old running around our street in Auckland, New Zealand with my friends. Now, we had toys, but our favorite games required no toys. What were this games? I don’t know, but they often involved simple sticks we pulled off trees and playing sword fights and killing the bad guys that hid the bushes. How often do we see toddlers get handed gifts at christmas and birthdays only to take more interest in the wrapping and packaging it came in. We tend to focus so much on having the best stuff we can buy that we often miss the reason we were buying it in the first place.  What is the difference between a $400 pair of shoes and a $40 pair of shoes? More often than not, nothing other than branding. If we could just learn to be more content with what we have, I think we would be much happier.

One thing I am slowly learning is patience. This lesson I’m learning from necessity rather than observation. After receiving many a scolding and much discipline as a child, when I see my daughter tearing up the magazine her mother just bought, emptying the contents of her lunch bowl on to the carpetted floor below or doing the multitudes of other things that babies do that really aren’t convenient, the knee jerk reaction is yell at her and get all annoyed and all huffy because she was being a “bad girl”. I am learning, however, that she is just being a baby. Yelling at an infant does nothing more than scare her, and give me a hoarse throat. I still yell at her, but now its usually to get her attention BEFORE she puts her hands in the toilet bowl, or BEFORE she puts that piece of fluff in her mouth. Those few seconds of hesitation on her part are usually more than enough to grab her and stop her from doing whatever it was she should have been doing.

I know my journey of parenthood has only just begun, and the lessons so far have been small and simple. I can only imagine the time she will give us in her teens, but for now, I’m content to simply enjoy my daughter and take in the lessons she has for me, while hopefully teaching her a few things along the way.