Parents Are Committed To Their Children's Freedom From Their Commitment

Here is the paradox of parental commitments. By making their commitment, parents control a child's life. But they are, by the same act, committed to free the child from their control.

Personal freedom is power. An inner power for writing one's own story. It is the power to write our own real story out of the raw material we were given without being asked.

We are all a little scared when we set our children free to write their own stories. For they may use their freedom to walk a road we never walked, nor wanted them to walk.

Their story may not be at all like our stories, or stories we ever dreamed of writing for ourselves. But when they write it responsibly, and honestly, out of the raw material we gave them, we can be thankful that we have kept our commitment to them.

Some parents have to push a child into freedom. A kid sometimes wants the freedom of options, consumer's freedom, but doesn't dare take on the freedom of inner power, the responsible person's freedom. So in order to keep our commitment to our child, we may have to shove him or her into freedom, the way a mother bear, at the right moment, pushes her cubs away.

A father suffer through this apparent contradiction in commitment. He felt stuck with an older child, and wanted him out of the house. But the son was afraid of freedom; the prospect of being responsible for himself immobilized him.

But he did want a consumer's freedom, the choice of things to own and enjoy. So he climbed the walls to get freedom of choice, and he burrowed himself inside the family to escape freedom for responsibility. Meanwhile, he hated his own dependence and hated his father for pushing him toward freedom.

Pushing children away from our controlling commitment is not a failure of commitment; it is the final step in commitment keeping. We don't stop caring, God knows. But we start caring in a style that matches their readiness for freedom.

Ideally, we shun the special grace God has for imperfect parents committed to imperfect children in an imperfect world.

Let's have a coffee

Hari

Enjoy reading...Blessing