Childhood Lessons
Animals don’t need lessons
on how to raise their young.
They do it or they don’t
according to nature’s plan.
Humans, on the other hand,
learn behavior
from their parents or
their schools, or their culture.
There is another way
that children learn.
A secret place within each child
that stores the cruelty and the love
of their individual experience.
A reservoir of knowledge
which knows no boundaries
of time or of place or of culture
and draws all children together
into a secret
universal bonding.
Memories
Not only children, but the child within all of us also stores memories both pleasant and painful. By retrieving these memories, we have an authentic record of those individuals who have been kind to us and those who may have been selfish or cruel. This knowledge gives us a more accurate accounting of the forces that have marked and shaped our lives.
Since we are a mixture of the many influences that have entered our lives, it is important to try to sort out what effect they have had on our feelings and our thinking so that we can discard the negative input and value more those positive influences that have taught us how to love.
“It’s frightening to think that you mark children merely by being yourself.”
Simone de Beauvoir