Give them roots and wings

I read with sadness about the news of Tan Ming Wei, a third-year Medical student at Cambridge University, who died in an accident in London.

It is news like this, that reminds me that my children are precious and valuable now, as they are, and that they are not just for me to raise and nurture so they can become useful and successful in the future, because that future might never come.

As I have written previously before, I am paranoid about the sudden loss of my children.  That influences my parenting decision a great deal.  One of the reasons I blog, is to immortalise my life, and my children’s lives (in some ways).  It is also because I believe that their current thoughts and experiences have worth, not just for themselves and our family, but the world at large, and I want to share that, so that they multiply.

The subject of the paper-chase and the stress it creates for our children and the family has been written to death, so I need not elaborate here – we all understand and know that there is something wrong.  However, we may not always know what is the right thing to do.

Yet our children rely on us to make the right choices.  As I have written previously, I choose family relationships – that’s one.

The second thing that I choose, is to put more weight on letting them contribute to the world now, than preparing themselves for the future.

Studying and doing well in examinations, is not a contribution to society.  It is preparing them for their own future.

For Ming Wei, her life is over and her career in the medical field will never materialise.  If that was all she lived for, or what her parents lived for, she would have lived in vain and her parents would have lost everything.  But she touched many hearts and changed the lives of the people she helped as a volunteer – that is her contribution to the world, and the world was made better because she lived.

I want the world to be a better place because my children lived.  I do not know the number of their days, so for every day that they live, I want them to give of themselves.  Their giving is simple, but not insignificant.  They give in deed and in words.  They give to each other by playing with each other, by showing love and respect.  They share things and perform acts of service for each other.  They give to me by helping me become a better parent and a better parent educator.  They give to their friends and the community in which they live by their encouragement, example and prayer.

I endeavor to make them lovable and interesting children – letting them experience life, giving them space to think and create.  I endeavor to make them loving children, showing them what it means to live for others.  Everything they do, must have intrinsic value in themselves – not just to look good on their resume for the future, because as I said, that future may never happen for them.

My children are not there yet, and neither am I.  We are only at the beginning of the journey because this is something that has only recently become clearer to me.  But every time I read about a child or a young person who dies, I am reminded, that I must make their lives count, now.