WHAT IS RIGHT ABOUT CHILDREN?

What is right about children?  I mean totally right?  Who are these little people that come in to our lives in a variety of ways?  They show up emerging from a mother.  They show up in restaurants, on playgrounds, in school rooms...everywhere.

They tend to run around a lot, create sounds that can be welcome or disturbing.  They have no limits to energy, laughter, play, spontaniety, limitless imagination, and trust. 

Who are these people that surround us in our homes, our daily lives, and in our thoughts and minds?  Why are they here?  We know why we are here, but why are "they" here?  Why do some big people welcome them with hugs, smiles, endless, wondrous play, even joy?  Why do some big people, parent or not, seem disturbed by their behavior, sounds, playfulness or inability to follow rules made up by the big people? 

I have an answer.  I think these little people in our lives, and out in public, are us.  They are the us we left behind, or at some point, went into hiding, when the big people in our daily lives, instructed us how to behave, to be silent, to speak only things that made sense, were logical and followed the beliefs yet to be questioned. 

I think our reaction to children, no matter their age, comes from beliefs not our own.  Beliefs that we took on believing others knew best on what a young human being is supposed to be.  We didn't know any better.  We sought out order, peace and fitting in with the adults in our lives.   The adults were passing on to us what they had learned was the right way to be and behave. 

If we got caught in that belief system, unaware we were, we created a curtain between other young people and ourselves.  We might still.  There is always an out to this story.  

Play.  First notice and unravel all the beliefs that keep us separate from children --from ourselves.  Assume that children, naturally, and instinctively, know stuff we are to learn from them.  Or rather, re-learn from them.  By Being with them completely. 

Big people do not need to control children.  We do not need to assume that they know nothing until we teach them.  We can assume we are the ones that can free ourselves from seeing the little ones as less than us.  We can assume, just for the heck of it, that they are showing us how to open our arms to everyone in the world, to require less control over others and our environment.  We can recover the us that still exists, wanting out,
wanting connection, wanting to care for everyone.   Wanting to engage.