English
EspañolParents help their children build their own life while respecting their freedom. Children are not inert bricks but living stones. They are not submissive servants but people. A child´s life does not consist of carrying out their parent´s dreams but fulfilling their own.
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“If the parents are in some sense the foundations of the home, the children are like the “living stones” of the family (cf. 1 Pet 2:5). Significantly, the word which appears most frequently in the Old Testament after the name of God (…, “the Lord”), is “child” (ben, “son”), which is itself related to the verb “to build” (banah).” (The Joy of Love, n.14)
Commentary
As the foundation of the family, parents help shape our children so they can build their own lives. We help them but do not substitute them in this task because we respect their freedom. Children are not their parent´s property. They are people who must exercise ownership of themselves. Parents educate, that is, cultivate and help them mature and come into their own. This is the meaning of “lovingly serving” our children precisely because we love them, for we gave them life.
Our children´s life isn’t built on lifeless bricks that parents can move and stack as they please. Children are “living stones,” which means they can move on their own accord; they are free and sovereign. Loving them with this consideration allows parents to teach them how love is respectful. This lesson will be an essential treasure for their own love stories.
As parents, we sometimes unintentionally make plans regarding our children’s future. For instance, we want them to be the best students at school or The University; we want them to marry a particular person or choose a specific major. Albeit parents intervene believing it is for “their own good,” we overlooked a fundamental truth: forcing something good against their will “corrupts” it. What we try to impose is left ruined and can damage our children. Truth and goodness demand a person have the necessary freedom to know and want it for themselves.
We can recognize we impose projects when, for example, we border on renouncing our “not so academically bright” son, who “dishonors the family name,” or the son who doesn’t choose a dream job or marries someone we don’t entirely approve of or fails financially or socially, and we criticize and condemn them for it. At times like these, it’s advisable to acknowledge how our children’s life isn’t ours, that they are not lifeless bricks but living stones. As such, it is our duty to give them advice promptly, accept them as they are, trust their decisions, and if they were to face setbacks, we fulfill our service to them by lending them a hand to lift them.
Parents are all those who always give life to the children, not those who condemn and kill them.
