Lessons Learned from a Child

As I'm preparing to leave the house to teach a 5:30 am cycle class my usually quiet neighborhood is stirred by the sound of sirens. I look out the window in time to see a fire engine and police car streaming past. My ninty-two year old mother-in-law and my sister-in-law who suffered a stroke both live within a few blocks of us so I thought of them when I saw the emergency vehicles. I also thought that I couldn't very well call them that time of day and risk waking them up just to reassure myself that they were okay. So believing that they were fine I scurried to my class only to find out later that the rescue workers had indeed been sent for my mother-in-law. She's recovering from a mild heart attack and I'm rethinking my life.

Parents have a habit of evaluating danger constantly and weighing risk benefit for their children all the time. It starts when you check a newborn while they sleep just to be sure they are still breathing and if it ends I don't know when. Of course the issues change with my most recent one being can two older teenage girls travel safely alone in Europe these days. That's more complicated than just checking for the rise and fall of a tiny baby's chest.

Part of the process of evaluating the danger of various scenarios is to let most of it go as not likely to happen. Eventually that toddler will walk down stairs and that teenager will drive a car. We cover up electric outlets and keep pan handles turned where a little hand can't reach for them. But at the end of the day we realize that our children share the same terminal status we all do and we let life happen. We hedge against everything we think could harm them but if they want to trudge out onto the football field or fly an airplane or help orphans halfway around the world we let them and we do it wth a certain amount of pride.

So it makes sense that when an emergency vehicle goes by we might dismiss the fleeting thought that it could be for someone we know. Yet, ofcourse, it could be. Yesterday's circumstance reminded me that I used to have a habit of praying for the people involved everytime I saw an ambulence or fire truck heading to a rescue. I have no idea when I stopped doing that but I know I started as a teenager and did it routinely for years. I started it when a good friend of mine's little sister was hit and killed while riding her bicycle. She was maybe nine years old and a bubbly happy child that I loved being around.  It happened so close to the pool where I was a life guard that I knew I must have heard the sirens.

I'll start that habit again today and not be too busy or distracted to send a fleeting prayer toward God when I know someone is in trouble. It's what I can do, likely all I can do, and I'll do it. It has also reminded me of another truth.

In Exercising Values I talk a lot about the need for parent's to share their noblest thoughts with their children through teaching character. Of course, I stand behind this. But at the same time I realize that much of what I know about what is instinctively good I've gotten by observing children. Jesus said we need to become like little children. Sure they have to be taught to share, to be polite, and not to say to your neighbor the first thing that pops into their head like "your belly is huge just like Sante Claus." But the sympathy they will show when someone else falls down or the enthusiasm they show for someone they love touches our hearts deeply.

I remember my youngest daughter at three years of age approaching her father who had tuned out the family after a hard day at work by lying on the bed with a newspaper between him and the children. A bit older, my two sons started to approach him but turned back when they saw the paper. Little Hilary on the other hand climbed up on his belly and ripped the paper from him and then sat there smiling and staring at him. Startled by this intrusion, it was easy to see that my husband's first instinct was to be annoyed and to retreat again. But in a matter of seconds as he caught that smile and intense stare his heart melted at her insistense on his attention. Soon the boys returned and they were all playing and the headlines were forgotten in a stream of giggles and laughter. Adults are seldom so adept at asking for and getting what they need but if they do everyone around them benefits.

So sure I've made it a life long ambition to teach my children everything I can to better euip them for their lives. I've sought out other good role models and teachers and am grateful for every coach, music and art teacher, and the rest that have invested in them. But at the end of the day I learn more from them than they do from me. I even learn from the teenage girl I used to be who prayed for strangers being carted off to a hospital and uncertainty. Youth has a clarity that can lose its edge with time. Spending time with your children may be the best thing you can do for you. If you ever do give up a bad habit it may be because you want to be a better parent. They teach us, they inspire us, and they motivate us. So put the "newspaper" down and let a child's good heart warm yours today.