What We Owe Our Children

"The only important thing is to make children feel brilliant and beautiful and perfectly extraordinary." -Mary Gordon

I suppose that I could pre-empt this sermon by telling you immediately what I think we owe our children, because sometimes I think I know. Or, perhaps I could be honest and tell you that most of the time I really don’t have a clue.

The truth, as always, lies somewhere in the middle. I have a pretty good idea what I think we owe our children, but I’m also very aware of how much I don’t know.

After all, I am, like you who have children, a mostly amateur parent. Like you, I have had my share of failures as well as successes in the parenting field. I make no claims to special knowledge or skill when it comes to children. I made, and probably will continue to make, plenty of mistakes. Some of you are a lot better at the parenting thing than I am, or was, since my children probably qualify as young adults now. Still, as we know, our children will always be our children.

But as we are about to embark on a congregational conversation on youth later today, I thought it might be good to spend some time thinking about the question I have posed in my title for today. Some would say our children already have too much, and that we don’t owe them anything, and there’s more than a little truth in that. We’ve probably all heard it from our parents, and said it to our own children on occasion: "The world doesn’t owe you anything." But do they have what they really need? Might it be that there is still something we can give them, something really useful, to help them along the perilous journey of life?

Some would say we can never give them too much, and there is certainly truth in that, too, if we can do it without spoiling them. But it is also true that we can give them too much of what they don’t really need.

Specifically, what do we, as a church community, owe to our children? And is that different in any way from what we as parents owe our children? That is one of the questions we will be struggling with later on today.

Several years ago, our former church secretary, Marge Killam, gave me an anonymous piece entitled, "To My Children: Things I Can and Cannot Do." It’s pretty good. I suspect that she may have given it to me with the idea that I might use it in a sermon someday, and that day has finally arrived! But she may also have given it to me as she saw me struggling mightily with some aspect of my own parenting, after I had complained about some problem I was experiencing, or some failure I had had. Either way, it’s worth considering:

I can share your life, but I cannot live it for you.
I can teach you things, but I cannot make you learn.
I can give you directions, but I cannot always lead you.
I can allow you freedom, but I cannot account for it.
I can take you to church, but I cannot make you believe.
I can teach you right from wrong, but I cannot decide for you.
I can give you love, but I cannot force it upon you.
I can teach you to be a friend, but I cannot make you one.
I can teach you to share, but I cannot make you unselfish.
I can teach you respect, but I cannot force you to show honor.
I can teach you to obey, but I cannot answer to your actions.
I can warn you about your sins, but I cannot make you moral.
I can teach you about prayer, but I cannot make you pray.
I can tell you how to live in this world, but I cannot give you eternal life.

Some of them are quick, and some are slow. Some are competitive, and some lack even the semblance of a competitive spirit. Some are athletic or musical or artistic and some aren’t. Some have skills that they could care less about, much to our frustration. Some are overachievers, and some are underachievers. Some are pliant, some are stubborn. Some are questioners, some are willing to accept almost everything they are told. Some are leaders, some are followers. Who knows why? The same parents can have two or more completely different children. They may share physical traits, but in terms of their personalities they might as well be from different planets. Some make us look good as parents, some make us look, well, not so good. You know how it goes.

In other words, they are mostly unique even when they all look the same. The great cellist Pablo Casals once wrote with truth,

The child must know that he or she is a miracle, a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn’t been and until the end of the the world there will not be another child like him or her. He or she is a unique thing, a unique thing from the beginning until the end of the world.

As works in progress, we cannot expect them to learn and grow without making mistakes, anymore than we can learn and grow without making mistakes. And they will make mistakes. They will do dumb stuff. They will make bad decisions, and they will get into trouble. All we can do is hope that the trouble they get into isn’t terminal, and that they have an opportunity to learn from their mistakes. For some of us this takes time, and so one of the things that we owe our children is the time to learn from their mistakes.

And speaking of time, we most of all owe them our own. Our time is one of the most important, if not the most important, things we can give them. It is also one of the most difficult things to give, because we are all so busy. We live in a world that makes incredible demands on our time, a world of ever-increasing complexity. Technology has not saved us time, it has stolen it. There is more and more to occupy our time, and most of it isn’t very important at all, especially when compared with our children.

I speak here as one who has too often failed dismally to give the kind of time to my children that they deserved. I know that I could have done a lot better. We all have time, we can all choose how we are going to use our time. One thing that I know we, as parents, friends, teachers, and as a religious community, owe our children is our time.

Time, by the way, is presence. We owe our children our presence. It is actually easier to be present to some children than others, but that is just an excuse. Our children deserve our presence in their lives. What could be more important? What is the greatest pain in most of our lives? Is it not the absence of those we need and love? We can be physically present and not really be present. If we are preoccupied, we are not being fully present. I speak from painful experience. I know I could have done a better job of being present at just about every stage of my children’s lives. And they grow up so quickly, we do not have too much time.

Time, of course, is free, sort of. We all know that time is also money. But that only means we ought to be extremely careful about how we spend it. Our children can do without material things far better than they can do without our time and our presence. I really believe that.

Do we save time for our children? And the flip side of the coin is, Do we, as the morning’s reading asked, provide opportunities in our children’s lives for un-programmed time: time simply to rest, time to look at the stars, time to play and to reflect? I think I spent most of my own childhood in a daydream, and consider that a very lucky thing indeed.

I believe that perhaps the most important thing we owe our children these days is hope. I believe that the greatest enemy of children in today’s world is despair. It’s a pretty messed up world out there, and children can see that as well as we can. They need to know that they can make a difference. They need to know that the world needs them. They need to have hope that the world is actually going to be there for them to grow into and inhabit.

We owe our children hope. We owe them a better world. Fortunately, youth is a hopeful time of life. But that doesn’t let us off the hook to begin making changes that make the world a better place. I truly believe that one of the things we owe our children is a change in our collective lifestyle of conspicuous consumption. We do not need more stuff.

I actually believe that we owe it to our children to teach them how privileged we are in this country. We owe it to them to teach them that people are all the same, but that not all people have the same opportunities that most of us do. They need to learn that most of the world is not like the good old USA. A. Powell Davies, undoubtedly one of the last Unitarian ministers to make the front cover of a major American magazine, way back in the 1950’s, once wrote,

Let our children cultivate humility. Let our children learn that they are like other people, even the people they tend to despise; and that there is good and bad in all of us, and that each of us must make a hard struggle to bring the good out on top. Then because of their own lost battles, they will acquire a gentle wisdom and walk softly where other people might get hurt.

The only moral lesson which is suited for a child--the most important lesson for every time of life--is this: "Never hurt anybody."

I certainly don’t envy our children growing up in what sometimes seems like a world of diminishing returns. It is an ever more legalistic and bureaucratic and complicated and crowded world that they must inhabit. They need to know that we care enough to make some changes in our own lifestyles, that we are willing to make more time for them, that we are willing to give some things up so that other generations will have some, too.

And I believe that we owe it to our children to teach them that they owe something to the world. They need to give something back. We need to help them understand that the world needs their time, talent, and treasure. If this world is to survive, no one is off the hook. It’s going to take each and every one of us to make a difference. We need to teach our children how important they are to that effort, and we need to show them that the amount of meaning we find in life is directly proportional to the amount that we are able to give back. They may not become rich in material things if they follow this path, but they will be rich in the things that matter most.

They need to know that we are willing to make that sacrifice, too. How can our church become a model for that kind of sacrifice, for that kind of effort to make a better world? Are we doing enough?

And so, at the least, we owe our children our time and theirs, we owe them our presence, we owe them hope, and we owe them a sense of their own self-worth and responsibility. If we could give them this much, it would be pretty good. Most of all, we owe them a sense of their preciousness to us.

Dan Valentine has written in a little prayer, which I have shared many times,

World, take our children by the hand, but sort of treat them gently.

To live in this world will require faith and love and courage.

So, World, I wish you would sort of take them and teach them the things they will have to know.

They will have to learn, I know, that all humanity is not just.

Teach them that for every scoundrel, there is a hero, that for every crooked politician there is a dedicated leader.

Teach them the wonder of books.

Give them quiet time to ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun, and flowers on a green hill.

Teach them that it is far more honorable to fail than to cheat.

Teach them to have faith in their own ideas, even if everyone tells them they are wrong.

Try to give our children strength not to follow the crowd when everyone else is getting on the bandwagon.

Teach them to listen to all people, but to filter all they hear on a screen of truth and to take only the good that comes through.

Teach them to sell their brawn and brains to the highest bidders but never to put a price on their heart and soul.

Teach them gently, World, but don’t coddle them, because only the test of fire makes a fine steel.

This is a big order, World, but see what you can do.

The Rev. Harold E. Babcock