Saving childhood By Fr. Roy Cimagala Chaplain Paref-Southcrest School Banilad, Cebu City Email: roycimagala@gmail ONE morning, while driving to work, I met a young mother with her three kids in a street corner. The kids could have been between ages three and ten. Each one of them was carrying a bunch of bananas in varying amounts, with the mother having the biggest load on her head. I surmised they were vendors who were not street hawking but were delivering the goods to different houses. I had to stop the car to get a close look at them. I was moved to pray and interiorly throw praises at them. They looked happy, and I thought a certain spirit united them to find joy in their work. It was truly a blessed sight. Though I also thought that the children were too young to be doing that work, I found consolation in the observation that they were all smiling and seemed to be enjoying themselves. I was not too worried about their childhood being wasted and needing to be saved. They all looked fine. The mother seemed to have done a good job with her kids. Truth was it was me who felt some twitch in my conscience. “Here I am,” I thought, “in a car with aircon and radio, and sometimes complaining interiorly because of the pressures, the rains or the sun, etc., and look at these wonderful souls, all happy…” This is actually one of those occasions that would spontaneously spur me to be sorry over some failures and to move on with greater resolve to do better. And I started to think of the children who have been spoiled by the so-called “good things” they have in life. Yes, I’ve also met a lot of this kind of children. Poor souls! They actually are drinking everyday some sweet poison without knowing it. They have all the money they need. They can satisfy all their wants and caprices. The parents concerned usually replace their presence and attention with mere money and other resources. No wonder, some of these kids become monsters in no time. They don’t greet others or smile at them. If ever there’s a smile, it’s of the cynical kind. They are almost completely self-absorbed, lost in their own world. It would seem the only connection they have to the outside world is when they need to eat or to go somewhere. Recently, I learned a word that could be applied to some of them. It’s “emo.” It’s still a fuzzy word that’s trying to get a clear definition, but some of its elements are that it is supposed to refer to some punk and hard-rock type of youngsters who have lost their sense of reality to such an extent that they find pleasure in cutting themselves. They put dark lines around their eyes, sport a choppy or spiky hairdo, tattoo themselves heavily, and ornament themselves with studs in different parts of their faces and bodies. They are very emotional and moody kids, with reason almost in flight. It’s clear we need to do some rescue operation with respect to these children. It has to start with the parents, with the family—that they are functioning properly, fulfilling their responsibilities well. Otherwise, things will just be a big mess. There, of course, are many things to be done in this regard, but underlying all these should be the serious quest to inculcate piety proper to all of us in our relationship first of all with God and with everybody else, starting with parents, elders and other persons of authority. Children are actually wired for piety. They have a natural curiosity and desire for what is good, true and beautiful. We just have to make sure that this innate desire is properly engaged and developed, not ambushed by some cheap if glittery things, and entangled there. Christ himself described children as the condition for one to enter heaven. “Unless you turn and become like children,” he said, “you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. And whoever received one child such as this in my name receives me.” (Mt 18) What wonderful words! Divine and therefore true and lasting, capable of bringing us to eternal life! We should do all to keep childhood the way it is meant to be in the mind of God. There are now elements that seek to undermine and destroy this nature of childhood. We need to be alerted and develop the proper attitude and skills to promote and defend, and in some cases, save childhood.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 04:20:36 +0000
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