“What kind of society puts material idols ahead of its children?” – Naomi Aldort .
I invite you not to blame the politicians and the NRA. (I am not saying they are not responsible, they clearly are.) Look inside and starts with you. Make your home one where humans come first. This trend of commitment to money and material goods starts at home: Do your children have more toys than time with you? Do both parents work to maintain a lifestyle that is not a real need at the cost of time together? Do you reward your children with material goods? Do you make the mark of a celebrating, getting things? Is shopping the preparation for going on a trip, creating a gathering etc.? Do your children see love as giving goods? Do your children see you getting upset over lost money or a broken vas, talking about the value of things? Or do you find yourself behaving frantically to save money even at the cost of quality of human connection? The list is long and you can find what is true for you.
In my book, Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves, there is a beautiful poem by Bruce Linton, “The Window,” demonstrating the shift from valuing things and what we want as adults, to what is truly of value: loving the child.
Blaming the forces that be is emotionally understandable, yet, it makes us powerless victims. “They don’t act.” “We don’t act.” We keep shopping and valuing material goods beyond its worth and at the cost of love.
As a parent, you are the leader of the small unit that joins eventually the big unit of the community and society. Home is a micro country. We create the state of mind, priorities and spirit of the next generation. We are enabling corporations’ greed by buying their products, and by buying their brainwash that to love is to give material goods, drive better cars, have more rooms, more gadgets and man made foods. And, we teach this rush for “things” to the children every day. The corporations will lose their power when we stop enabling them by playing into their plan. And our children will be as caring of life as they see us be.
Thinking is communal, even though we are mostly not conscious of this fact. We have the power to raise children who put life, love, connection and humanity way way before material idols. I invite you to start now.
