The fear that society creates

We don’t talk about the kind of gifts that children have, the kids that are doing really good things, they’re curious. I have a grandson who is making his own guitar. We’re not talking about that. We’re seeing the children that have tried to commit suicide, that are doing things like breaking into homes, and that world gets, I think they go into our reptilian brain. We can’t think.

Things to think about

What is your biggest fear when it comes to your own children or the children in your program? Where does that fear come from? Does media or society play a role?
How do you instill in children that people are inherently good?
How do you fall into the trap of appearance being more important that what is true and real?

Highlights from Playful Wisdom
by Michael Mendizza featuring Bev Bos and Joseph Chilton Pearce

Babies are planted in the soil of the mother-father bond. If you want a healthy plant to grow, you prepare and nurture the soil it will be planted in. This focus and primacy of the mother-father bond is easily forgotten. A new mother is a changed being. She is no longer that cute, seductive playmate or business partner. Her attention, as never before, is with this new miracle bursting inside. A father’s experience is distant, second hand by comparison. As a partner our role is active support. It is our precious responsibility to allow our partner to sink deeply and safely into this experience, to protect her, allow and empower her to give herself as completely as possible to the natural miracle we are sharing. As the saying goes, ‘women and children first.’ It takes a strong man to do this; not outward strength, rather inner strength. Just as nature demands that women change when they become mothers, males must change when they become fathers. Selfish wants and needs give way to something far greater. Becoming a father means stepping up to the plate and demonstrating, moment by moment, the very best qualities and capacities we have, not for personal gain or fame, rather because the future of the world depends on it.

I think the fear comes from not being grounded in what we believe about children and allowing the scary things that you read in the newspaper, that you see on television, and the things that people talk about every day, I got the kid down the street, oh my goodness, what happened? There’s a teacher that’s in our school, she teaches I think 4th, 5th and 6th graders, and she seems frightened a lot about the things that go on. Just the other day a young girl in her school tried to commit suicide. She happened to find her. It’s the kind of stuff that people talk about all the time. We don’t talk about the kind of gifts that children have, the kids that are doing really good things, they’re curious. I have a grandson who is making his own guitar. We’re not talking about that. We’re seeing the children that have tried to commit suicide, that are doing things like breaking into homes, and that world gets, I think they go into our reptilian brain. We can’t think. We can’t look around and say everybody’s like this.

I think that one of the things we have to believe in is the goodness of people and not allow ourselves to go down that dark, dark path of believing that there’s no hope, that there aren’t any good people or decent people. Everybody’s trying to rip us off. And I think that comes from allowing ourselves to get into that world of media that’s just, it’s just frightening all the time. One of the things that when I was growing up almost everybody in the neighborhood was the same as we were. None of them had very much money. Nobody had a lot of clothes. Nobody had a car when they were 16. We all lived kind of the same lives. And now I think it’s almost instant comparison. Everybody has so much. And I even find myself falling victim sometimes. I would really, really like a kitchen floor. I can’t imagine wanting it more. I want it more than anything else in the world. A new kitchen floor. Half of the floor is gone out there. I painted it to look the same color as the rest of the floor and I put a rug over it but you know is it what I truly want? Yes it would be nice but I tell you Michael sometimes I’m invited to homes as I travel and stuff and some of it is so overwhelmingly beautiful and having grown up poor with so little you can find, I can find even myself, even though I know better, and that’s not what I really, really, really want. I can find myself fall into their trap. I’d rather have another book to read. I’d rather go to another play. I’d rather do all sorts of things than maybe have a kitchen floor but you can find yourself feeling kind of left out.