Redefining Parenting
Our care of children is a service to the greater circle: we help each child bask in the circle's nourishment, so that she in turn, and in her own time, might enrich the circle. We believe that we are given children to be their caretakers and guides in their blossoming -- the discovery and development of their unique and innate gifts. Children are not ours to do with as we choose; they are the sons and daughters of our greater family, our people. We care for them on behalf of our people, and our relationships with our children reflect that. This leaves us not alone as parents, and our children not alone with just one or two parents.
Our role is more aptly defined as guiding. Children are given the space to explore and develop naturally, which at the same time gives caretakers the space to pursue their own goals. To live for our children is to show them by example how to repress your own dreams and adopt another's. When we are clear on our paths, our children will be clear on theirs.
"In my work I come across some people who believe that their purpose in life is to live for their children. When they are serving their children, they are content; when their children are happy, they are happy. When their children seek their own lives, they get anxious, when their children leave home, they get depressed. They've lost their reason for living. They've forgotten that their reason for being is to live in balance.
To live for our children is to lead them into imbalance--to create with them a co-dependent relationship which, when it is finished with us, they will crave to fill with children of their own."
- Tamarack Song, Blossoming the Child