That was our topic at preschool (baby group) last week. Yes, I know, I’m in a baby group, and the baby hasn’t arrived yet. I need the refresher. Anyway, we talked about what values we hold as a family and what we wish to impart to our child. It really hit me then, with my thoughts lately about how to make a perfect school system, that there are so many different (and often conflicting) values out there. But today, I’m not dealing with conflict. I’m just sharing my hopes and dreams for our boys. Here’s the entry I wrote for the baby-in-progress’ journal.
Hey, kiddo.
Parents are full of hopes and dreams for their children. We want you to be healthy, happy, successful. We want to guarantee that you’ll never want for anything, never suffer, etc. But that’s not how life goes. Ups and downs, making choices… and making mistakes… that’s how we grow.
So we want you to have tools. The values we work to instill fill your toolbox so that when you face a challenge, even if all else seems lost, you have those values to call upon.
We want you to value the pursuit of knowledge — observing, questioning, reasoning, and making your own sense of the world rather than relying on others to dictate what’s right and what’s wrong.
We want you to know compassion. We are all human beings, deserving of kindness and humane treatment and respect, whether we have reached a sad state through misfortune or through mistakes of our own doing. We want you to be willing to offer compassion, and we hope that it will find you when you need it.
We want you to value perseverance. Life won’t always be easy. You need to have a drive to help you overcome obstacles and keep moving forward. It means you set goals, you make plans, and you keep working and adjusting to reach them.
Mommy and Vati believe that finding your own truths, making your own happiness, and accepting yourself (and others) as you/they are will lead to a happy, fulfilling life for you. We hope to share these values with you by modeling them in our own lives, by discussing the choices we make… and why these choices need not be yours. You are, young man, always our baby, but most importantly, who you become belongs to you.
Love, Mommy
