There are many people who believe that in dealing with children one
has to be perfect.
That is a completely unhealthy attitude.
First, being perfect means that one is not allowed to make errors. In
real world, where everyone makes mistakes, this means the
following: That people cannot admit the errors they make. Which
means that they are bound to whatever errors they make and have to
perpetuate them, for fear of losing trust and respectability, rather
than admitting those errors and being able to move past them - and
in so doing to show oneself to be truly a person worthy of trust and
respect. Errors build up; they demand destruction of any quality in
the mind that might see them, resulting in enormous hypocrisy,
cruelty and emotional violence. The genius and the wisdom and the
insight and joy of life are driven into extinction lest they be capable
of disrupting the cancerous, lie-based and lie-dependent, social
adaptation - the lies that this dynamic demands. The qualities that
are capable of insight and inspiration are driven into extinction and
criminalized, from which position they become antisocial and are
demonized further. The society, in the meanwhile, is robbed of the
riches that such qualities can impart. The lie becomes self-
perpetuating and ensnares all minds in its bloat. The cruelty, venality
and hypocrisy that Mark Twain, Sinclair Lewis, Allen Ginsburg and
other great minds have seen in the society they have addressed are
not incidental. Indeed they are a natural result of the mechanisms
involved, and they will only cease when the people are allowed to be
human and do not have to pretend the things that they cannot be.
Secondly, being perfect means that the child is not allowed to make
errors either. This means, once again, that any error they make is
used to wear them down and break them apart. This does not assist
their development; it stunts their development. In striving for an
unrealistic and indeed impossible standard, which of course nobody
can achieve, the child is kept from striving for and attaining any kind
of realistic accomplishment. The ability to achieve suffers; so does
self-esteem; so does belief in the world in which it is possible to
make things better. The child is put into a state of constant shame
and despair, from which they cannot accomplish anything at all. And
that is a horrible thing to inflict on one's kid, and a more horrible
thing
to inflict upon one's civilization.
Finally, and this is most damaging of all: The concept of human
perfection is seen, not as being one's best, but as trying to
approximate a standard that is external.That does the most harm.
Instead of seeing the potentiality encoded in the child and giving it a
way to constructive expression, the child is forced to become an
embodiment of somebody else's adaptation - an adaptation that,
belonging to someone else, is ill-fitting and therefore failing to
nurture all things of which one is capable. A cat is not made perfect
by trying to be a dog; it is made perfect by being the best cat it can
be. Trying to be a dog results in complete disfigurement of the cat,
and inability for it to bring what the cat can be into fruition. The
children are robbed of what they can themselves be on the individual
basis, and forced to subsume themselves under somebody else's
ill-fitting fallacy. Not only does that rob the world of human
potentiality, but it furthermore robs the people inside the world of
the
best of what they themselves can be.
I refuse to impose upon children an ill-fitting adaptation; nor to
formulate unachievable standards; nor to set goals for them that are
inappropriate; nor to make it impossible for them to grow and move
past whatever errors they unavoidably make. I do not wish the to
be myself, or my parents, or Jesus, or Bush, or Gates, or Mike
Tyson; I do not wish to rob them of attainable possibilities; I do not
wish to reduce them to shame, despair, and distrust in their
potential and their selves. Nor do I wish them to be unable to admit
mistakes, or myself be unable to admit mine lest it disrupt the
ever-more-expensive, ever-more-malignant, and ever-more-hypocritical
lie of perfection. Instead I will help them to be what they can be as a
natural unfoldment of their potentiality. I will help them to be their
realistic best, instead of demanding that they strive for an
ill-fitting and
impossible standard. I will be honest with them when I myself make
an error. And I will create a climate in which they can safely admit
their mistakes and, acknowledging the reality of their own and the
world, move past them to become kinder, wiser, more honest, more
confident, and more forgiving and tolerant individuals - all qualities
that are far greater than ones demanded by the paralyzing lie of
perfectionism, and all qualities that humanity sorely needs.
And in that not only will I be doing the children a favor, but I will
be
doing a favor to any country I choose to inhabit - and also doing a
favor to humankind.
Ilya Shambat
http://ibshambat.blogspot.com
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