How we Love Children

How we love children…
continue to love naughty children…
… love them more… weep over alienation from them…
… scold, but still love…
remember, with sadness not blame, tantrums and bad behaviour…
… forget much or most, or remember with amusement,
for childish disobedience is part of growing.
We devote ourselves to them… weep with them…
… teach them to pick themselves up…
… stand back when they are making their own way…
… give them space to grow…
… admire their attempts even when they fail…
… see their hurt when they let you down…
… give them credit, love them even more,
when they try to be good but fail…
… and know this is just their childhood.
All their adult life will grow from this.

If love seems to fail… parent turning from child…
child from parent… the failure is in both.
Parents are also children, babes in eternity,
we have our failings and our fallings too,
and a good Parent who loves us
even more than we love our own children,
who weeps over us, with us,
gives everything, even life itself,
for us.

When we move on from this life we will not be turned away because of our childhood failings, because a good parent does not cease to be a parent when we grow up. However we tried and failed, the great Parent of us all will never fail.

All shall be well, and all shall be well,
And all manner of thing shall be well.
–                      Dame Julian of Norwich.

(Language changes, meanings change. When Dame Julian wrote these words ‘all manner of thing’ meant every possible thing. Now it has been weakened, ‘all manner of things’ is used to mean ‘lots of things’. Dame Julian’s meaning was total)