Tuesday, May 15, 2007

A Frightened Dad-to-be

Dear Rabbi Shmuley,

I am terrified of becoming a father, and my wife is 6 months pregnant, so I don’t have much time to work through my fears! What if I screw up? What if he/she goes too near the balcony edge and falls off?  What if he/she likes country music and I refuse to let him listen to it and he forever resents me for imposing my own opinions on him? Help!

 

Dad-to-Be in Detroit

 

Dear Dad,

Relax.  No parent goes into it with any greater knowledge then you have yourself, and most of the learning you will do must come through the experience of it.  Word of wisdom: a child, so the proverb goes, is like an arrow. If you shoot him in the right direction, he will pursue that course long after you have set it. But this metaphor implies something else, too. When an arrow is shot, a force is actually imparted to it. It may be invisible, but it’s there, nonetheless. The objective is for the parent to be present and absent at the same time, as God himself is. So how does God manage this difficult trick?  He guides and steers us in a certain direction, and influences us, yet at the same time, remains invisible to us and does not stifle our creativity.

 

Create the right environment.  You want your toddler to play but naturally, you’re afraid that he could hurt himself if he is left on his own.  So to avoid bumps and bruises, you stand over the child constantly.  But this kind of regular intervention will stifle the child’s initiative and ensure that he never develops his own personality.  There is another, much better way. You can create the proper environment for the child to develop and still be left to his own devices. So rather than yell every time he gets too near the stairs, you can place the child in a safe room where the jagged edges are covered with cushions and the power outlets covered by safe plastic. In this way, you participate in the child’s upbringing through a presence, rather than by affecting the learning and the child’s initiative directly. You set up the right environment and become the child’s guardian.

 

This passive role is so important when it comes to education, because it is the aspect that allows a child to grow as his own person, that allows the child to discover who he is and what his talents are. It also preserves a child’s most precious commodity, namely, his innocence.