On Parenting Children and Yourself

A couple years ago I shared the following as part of a previous post:

The passage quoted is the first half of chapter 35 from The Parent's Tao Te Ching by William Martin. The free verse poem translation is paired with the following practical advice:

You will have to constantly contend
with the pressure for ever more,
and ever bigger,
that culture seeks to impose
on your children
and you.
It takes courage and discipline
to go slow,
live simply,
and see clearly.
But the rewards are great.
What ordinary thing can you do together today?

I know that chapter number and second half because I have now, finally, read the entire book. It's superb. Martin has taken a classic of universal wisdom and marvelously rendered it not just for English readers but for our contemporary American context. And for parents, though I'd be surprised if anyone didn't find personal applications for themselves as part of the process. I've been reading a library copy, but have every intention of buying my own and revisiting it regularly.

Though all 81 chapters were insightful, I've pulled out to share the ones that most spoke to me on my initial reading. They follow.

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1.

Words of Life

You can speak to your children of life,
but your words are not life itself.
You can show them what you see,
but your showing and their seeing
are forever different things.

You cannot speak to them of Divinity Itself.
But you can share with them
the millions of manifestations of this Reality
arrayed before them every moment.
Since these manifestations have their origin
in the Tao,
The visible will reveal the invisible to them.

Don't mistake your desire to talk for their readiness to listen.
Far more important are the wordless truths they learn from you.
If you take delight in the ordinary wonders of life,
they will feel the depth of your pleasure
and learn to experience joy.
If you walk with them in the darkness of life's mysteries
you will open the gate to understanding.
They will learn to see in the darkness
and not be afraid.

*

Go for a slow and mindful walk.
Show them every little thing that catches your eye.
Notice every little thing that catches theirs.
Don't look for lessons or seek to teach great things.
Just notice.
The lesson will teach itself.

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4.

Infinite Possibilities

You do not know the true origin of your children.
You call them yours
but they belong to a greater Mystery.
You do not know the name of this Mystery,
but it is the true Mother and Father of your children.

At birth your children are filled with possibilities.
It is not your job to limit these possibilities.
Do not say, "This and that are possible for you.
These other things are not."
They will discover on their own what is and is not possible.
It is your job to help them stay open
to the marvelous mysteries of life.

*

It may be interesting to ask,
"What limitations have I, unthinking,
taken upon myself?"
It is very difficult for your child's horizons
to be greater than your own.
Do something today that pushes
against your own preconceptions.
Then take your child's hand
and gently encourage her to do the same.

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22.

Your Greatest Legacy

If you want your children to succeed,
show them how to fail.
If you want them to be happy,
show them how to be sad.
If you want them to be healthy,
show them how to be sick.
If you want them to have much,
show them how to enjoy little.
Parents who hide failure, deny loss,
and berate themselves for weakness,
have nothing to teach their children.
But parents who reveal themselves,
in all of their humanness,
become heroes.
For children look to these parents
and learn to love themselves.

*

Parenting need not be a burden,
one more thing you have to do
and don't do well enough.
Instead consider your failures,
your sorrows,
your illnesses,
and your difficulties
as your primary teaching opportunities.

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28.

Transforming the World

The world insists on achievement and progress
and it is full of enmity and strife.
Can you see all this and still help your children
maintain their trust and hope and peace?

Can you accept the world as it is,
yet live according to a different standard?
Can you let your children see
a way of living
that transforms,
heals,
nurtures,
and loves?

*

If you complain about politics,
and gripe about taxes,
and stew about the sorry state of things
your children will learn to whine instead of laugh.
If you can see in every moment
a chance to live,
and to accept,
and to appreciate,
your children will transform the world.

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32.

Rules Do Not Give Life

Rules do not give life.
The Tao gives life.
And the Tao is seen in butterflies
and in galaxies.
If children were trusted to discover God
in the center of their own hearts
the world would be at peace.

But we have made systems of rules
and institutions of control.
Accept this as the way things are
but always recognize the limitations of rules,
and the dangers of institutions.
Rules can guide a child but cannot define that child.
Institutions can nurture a child
but cannot bring that child to maturity.

*

For a short while,
when your children are young,
you may be able to coerce good behavior.
But goodness of the heart
can never be coerced.
In can only be encouraged
or discouraged.
Consider your family's rules,
spoken and unspoken.
Who made them?
Who benefits from them, and how?
Do they encourage
or discourage your children?

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36.

Opposites Are Necessary

If you want your children to be generous,
you must first allow them to be selfish.
If you want them to be disciplined,
you must first allow them to be spontaneous.
If you want them to be hard-working,
you must first allow them to be lazy.
This is a subtle distinction,
and hard to explain to those who criticize you.

A quality cannot be fully learned
without understanding its opposite.

*

All your friends,
(especially your grandparents)
will tell you this is nonsense.
But look carefully inside of yourself.
Only the child with a strong sense of self
can be truly generous.
Only the child who discovers his or her bliss
will truly work hard.
Most of what passes as discipline and hard work
is an overlay of coerced behavior.
It has no authentic power or joy.
Only the lazy, undisciplined dreamer
can discover within the source of true discipline
that will bring great success.

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49.

Giving Respect

When your children behave,
give them respect and kindness.
When your children misbehave,
give them respect and kindness.

When they are hateful,
love them.
When they betray your trust,
trust them.

The River of Life nurtures
everything it touches,
without asking for anything.
You will be happy and content
if you do the same.

*

Believe this difficult truth.
Showing respect in the face of disrespect,
love in the face of hate,
trust in the face of betrayal,
and serenity in the face of turmoil,
will teach your children more
than all the moral lectures
by all the preachers
since the dawn of time.

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67.

Compassion, Patience, and Simplicity

There are only three qualities
you must teach your children.
Compassion, patience, and simplicity.
Some would say this is absurd.
They would teach instead,
ambition, drive, and consumption,
and say it is the way of success.

But if they learn patience,
they will see the world as it truly is.
If they learn simplicity,
they see themselves as they truly are.
And if they learn compassion,
they heal themselves
and the world.

*

Following the Tao as a parent
will often seem opposed
to conventional parenting wisdom.
The confusion lies in ourselves as parents.
We don't know what we truly want,
or who we truly are.
Compassion, patience, and simplicity
cannot be taught
until they are experienced.
And when we experience them,
we lose the need to teach them.
We live them instead.
And then our children learn.

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68.

Fun and Games

Before your children learn to win or lose,
they play at games for fun.
But then they come to believe
that they must win
at games,
at business,
and at war.
They even learn to win or lose
at love.

But the Tao teaches
that games are for fun,
that business is for the common good,
that no one wins at war,
and that love endures for all.

*

Do you play your games for fun?
Do you work for the common good?
Do you divide the world into friends and enemies?
Do you love selectively?
Can you really "lose" at love?
Examine all of these with honesty.
The answers will reveal
what your children are truly learning.

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76.

Hold Tight Only to Compassion

It has been said by experts,
"You must be consistent,
or your children will be confused."
Nonsense.
Who among us is consistent?
Circumstances are always changing.

Children become confused
when parents become rigid,
holding rules above love.
Be consistently flexible.
Hold tight only to compassion.

*

As people age they become
either soft and supple,
or hard and brittle,
both in mind and body.
I have seen profound examples
of each type,
so have you.
Which are you becoming?

Children are flexible
in body and in spirit.
The greatest gift we can give them,
is to become the same.

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