Have you
looked around you lately? Our world is a
scary place and it only seems to be getting scarier. I feel the strong need to prepare my children
for what is to come without possibly having the knowledge of what that really
is. How can you do that without
encouraging your children to grow strong and responsible and brave, but I don’t
think the best way to do that is by stealing our children’s childhood from
them.
I want my
girls to grow up to be soft and gentle and compassionate in a world that forces
them to be tough and hard like liquid nails…so how do I do that?
I thought a
lot about this very thing all week as Halloween seemed to zip by us. I love every holiday and I love
Halloween. We live in a housing complex
where people come from all over to trick or treat. Our houses are conveniently lined up side by
side on extra-long blocks with bright street lamps and a strong feeling of
safety, so of course mothers and fathers come from all over town and even other
towns up to 30 minutes away to get their children the most haul possible in the
safest place possible. Some of my
neighbors have grumbled about this. Some
years we’ve had over 500 kids come trick or treating and yes if you don’t shop
smart that can add up. I love seeing all
those kids in the craziness that is only solved by leaving the front door open
and letting in all the flies in town for several hours. I’m choosing to chalk this up to the reason
that my daughter Nan sadly chose not to go trick or treating this year and not
to the fact that some of those moms around here thought they should decide for
my daughter when she is too old to go trick or treating instead of me, her mom. I’m choosing to think that sheer numbers is
why they expressed to her that she was too old not that they really thought
that me, her mother, hadn’t taken the time to notice that she was growing up
and out of Halloween.
Nan dressed
up as she always does. We spent a long
time trying to come up with a classy costume, just like we did last year, which
was fun and cool and pretty and a little bit more grown up all at the same
time, while still being completely innocent.
Nan talked and planned for several weeks and she even helped me get the
other three children younger than her costumes ready. But when trick or treating time came she
chose not to go. Instead her and her
friend Bailey hung out and eventually went to another friend in our
neighborhood’s house. She didn’t not go
trick or treating because she didn’t want to, she didn’t go because several
moms last year, including a very dear friend of mine, told her that she was too
old to go trick or treating.
What???? I never thought that you
were too old. Just about the time that
you get that way you have a beautiful baby girl or boy to take toddling around
door to door and just when they get to old and they have one of those beautiful
boys or girls to take around you get to go trick or treating with them. I will never be too old to trick or treat,
for I will always have kids or grandkids to take. Our neighbor behind us who is the best
grandpa ever talked about that very thing when he was out and about with his
daughter and her cute little one trick or treating at our house.
My mother
was amazing when I was a child. I
remember saying to her when I was preteen, “Is it weird that I still like Barbie’s?” Do you know what she said to me? “Of course
not. I still like Barbie’s.” She taught the little girl in me that was
feeling the pressure to grow up too young that you can always be young even
when you have to be old. I think that is
what has kept my mom so sweet and so compassionate in a world that has also
been hardening her. She remembers the
innocence of being young and sweet and pure and she still is, but don’t for one
minute think that she isn’t hard as those liquid nails that I talked about
earlier. She’s had to be with the
struggles that she has gone through, one of them being my little brother who
has struggled with drug abuse and all that that goes with it.
I want my
Nan, who is fifteen and very quickly growing up and out of the house, to hold
onto all of that innocence and tenderness that comes from childhood. Even the bible says that we need to hold onto
that. Luke 18:17 “Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom
of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein. “
So then why has some of these other moms
expressed to my daughter that she should be ashamed of some of the childhood
rights that she wants to hold onto a little bit longer…and where else do we
want these older but not grown kids to be on Halloween anyways. Out causing trouble? Smashing pumpkins and pulling pranks that
seem to get out of control? Or maybe find
one kind of mischief or another that quite possible could damage them and
harden them for the rest of their lives?
Why on earth would we want to encourage those kids from our very own
neighborhoods to be bored on Halloween and go get into trouble when we can each
take our part and lift them up and teach them fun in a healthy safe clean environment. Why wouldn’t that be our first choice?
I know I tend to hold onto my kids’ youth
a little longer than some parents. I’ve
even had one mom once tell me that her daughter didn’t want to play with mine anymore
because I still let her play with dolls and didn’t I think that she was too old
to play with baby dolls. My daughter was
ten by the way. But my children also
know how to work and be serious. They
work hard along with the whole family through our family business to do their
part to help put food on the table and a roof over our heads, but I only think
that is all the more reason for them to learn how to play hard too and to hold
onto that inner child that can still have fun and still find innocence when the
world requires so much out of them.
I know my daughters, and my sons too, need
to learn to be tough or they will never make it through this hard world, but I
want them to go about it with a gentleness that speaks of childhood and
tenderness and God all the while they are learning to be tough as liquid nails. Why would I want to steal any last moment of
this from them when they have a lifetime of a hard world ahead of them? Why would I want to take away that little
child that St. Luke says is the only way that any of us can enter into the
Kingdom of Heaven? Why would any mother
want their child to grow up too fast when part of them can always hold onto
that innocence that was their childhood? I hope that I am never too old to be young.
