1.6 Common Lessons We Receive from Children
Children can also give spiritual lessons to their parents by. means of their character, habits, behavior, attitude toward life, etc.
It is especially difficult to deal on this account with the first child (when there are several children in the family).
Life may worry that the parents only intend to have one child, so its task is to have the first child teach them all of the necessary lessons. For this reason, the first-born child idealizes the opposite values of the parent who needs to be taught Life’s lessons the most.
The first child destroys the values system of his parents. He usually possesses the following:
- The qualities opposite to the ones idealized by his parents
- The qualities that his parents despise in other people
These qualities will annoy his parents the most and will teach them the proper lessons.
Typical Ways to Destroy the Idealizations of the Parents Let us take a look at some of the common ways for children to destroy the idealizations of their parents:
- A drug-addicted child may destroy his parents’ love of discipline and sense of order, their devotion to moral norms, and their care about public opinion.
- A child who does poorly at school destroys such values as knowledge, intelligence, planning and managing life, and public opinion.
- A child who lives an alternative lifestyle (e.g., becomes a punk, rapper, etc.) will not allow his parents to idealize public opinion, rules of social behavior, or moral norms.
- Some children show interest to sex quite early. This way, they destroy their parents’ puritan views about sex, as well as their condemnation of sex and restrictions regarding intimacy.
- A very spiritual child will not permit his parents to exaggerate the importance of material values.
- A child who lies and steals will destroy the excessive honesty of his parents.
- A child who is too independent will fight against the parental control over his life and against too much protection or care.
- Children who are too attached to material values will struggle against extremely spiritual parents who condemn wealthy people.
As you know, difficult relationships that occur between parents and their children have always existed. Parents are always critical of new ideas and are attached to old ones.
Young people have the opposite perspective. Parents and their children give each other Life’s proper lessons. This cycle will continue until the moment we learn to forgive each other and accept the views of the other party.
This system allows us to easily predict a child’s character traits (especially those of the first-born). To determine a child’s personality, we simply need to know the main idealizations of one of his parents. The child will destroy these values.
Families with No Children
Now let us consider the situation when parents are unable to have children. What might be the reason?
The most possible explanation is that the parents idealize the idea of having a child and cannot imagine life without children. They live without a child for a long time and continuously experience stress and anxiety about not having children. They believe that their real life will only begin when they have a baby. This belief is mistaken. We live life right now, and we should learn to enjoy it the way it is given to us. That is why Life itself has to destroy the belief that a family cannot live without a child.
The situation may drastically change, however, if the parents reconsider their views and understand that their life is wonderful and full of happy events even without a child. Children simply make our lives fuller.
There may be another reason for an inability to have children. To correct the erroneous views of the parents, the child should possess a set of qualities that are in opposition to his parents’ value system. The number of these qualities might be so big that a child would make his situation much worse in the process of making his parents better people. The child’s SA would invariably become full. To avoid this result, the child’s soul is not allowed into this world.
If the parents truly want to have a child, they should get rid of excessively important ideas about the world and their requirements and expectations regarding a future baby (its sex, talents, health, etc.). Instead, they should determine what exactly they idealize, reconsider their views, forgive each other, and accept our world as is. This way, the mission of their future child will not be so complicated, and he will be able to enter this world.