Parenting

 

 

Question 3

Why are parents so cruel to their children? is there any sense in making them responsible? and how can one avoid making the same mistake?

 

 

Parents are cruel to their children because parents have some investment in them. Parents have some ambitions they would like to fulfill through their children -- that's why they are cruel. They want to use the children. The moment you want to use somebody, you are bound to be cruel. In the VERY idea of using somebody as a means, cruelty has entered, violence has come in.

 

Never treat another person as a means! -- because each person is an end unto himself.

 

Parents are cruel because they have ideas: they want their children to be this and that. They would like their children to be rich, famous, respected; they would like their children to fulfill their unfulfilled egos. Their children are going to be their journeys.

 

The father wanted to be rich but could not succeed, and now death is approaching; sooner or later he will be cut off from life. He feels frustrated: he has not yet arrived. He was still searching and seeking... and now comes death -- this looks so unjust. He would like his son to carry on the work, because his son represents him. He is his blood, he is his projection, his part -- he is his immortality. Who knows about the soul? Nobody is definite about it. People believe, but belief is out of fear, and deep down the doubt remains.

 

Each belief carries the doubt in itself. Without the doubt there cannot be any belief. To repress the doubt, we create the belief -- but the doubt remains gnawing in the heart like a worm in the apple; it goes on eating inside you, it goes on rotting you from the inside. Who knows about God and who knows about soul? They may not be.

 

The only immortality known to man is through children -- that is actual. The father knows, "I will be living in my son. I will be dead, soon I will be under the earth, but my son will be here. And my desires have remained unfulfilled." He imposes those desires, implants those desires, in the consciousness of his son: "You have to fulfill them. If you fulfill them, I will be happy. If you fulfill them, you have paid your debts to your father. If you don't fulfill them, you have betrayed me."

 

This is from where cruelty comes in. Now, the father starts moulding the child according to HIS desire. He forgets that the child has his own soul, that the child has his own individuality, that the child has his own inner growth to unfold. The father imposes HIS ideas. He starts destroying the child.

 

And he thinks he loves: he loves only his ambition. He loves the son also because he is going to become instrumental; he will be a means. This is what cruelty

 

You ask me: WHY ARE PARENTS SO CRUEL TO THEIR CHILDREN?

 

They cannot help it, because they have ideas, ambitions, desires -- unfulfilled. They want to fulfill them, they want to go on living through their children. Naturally, they prune, they cut, they mould, they give a pattern to the children. And the children are destroyed.

 

That destruction is bound to happen -- unless a new human being arises on the earth, who loves for love's sake; unless a new parenthood is conceived: you love the child just for the sheer joy of it, you love the child as a gift from God. You love the child because God has been so... such a blessing to you. You love the child because the child is life, a guest from the unknown who has nestled into your house, into your being, who has chosen you as the nest. You are grateful and you love the child.

 

If you really love the child, you will not give your ideas to the child. Love never gives any ideas, never any ideology. Love gives freedom. You will not mould. If your child wants to become a musician, you will not try to distract him. And you know perfectly well that being a musician is not the right kind of job to be in, that he will be poor, that he will never become very rich, that he will never become a Henry Ford. Or the child wants to be a poet and you know he will remain a beggar. You know it! but you accept it because you respect the child.

 

Love is always respectful. Love is reverence. You respect! because if this is God's desire to be fulfilled through the child, then let it be so. You don't interfere, you don't come in the way. You don't say, "This is not right. I know life more, I have lived life -- you are just ignorant of life and its experiences. I know what money means. Poetry is not going to give you money. Become a politician, rather! or at least become an engineer or a doctor." And the child wants to become a woodcutter, or the child wants to become a cobbler, or the child simply wants to become a vagabond, and he wants to enjoy life... rest under trees, and on the sea beaches, and roam around the world.

 

You don't interfere if you love; you say, "Okay, with my blessings you go. You seek and search your truth. You be whatsoever you want to be. I will not stand in your way. And I will not disturb you by my experiences -- because my experiences are my experiences. You are not me. You may have come through me, but you are not me -- you are not a copy of me. You are NOT to be a copy of me. You are not to imitate me. I have lived my life -- you live your life. I will not burden you with my unlived experiences. I will not burden you with my unfulfilled desires. I will keep you light. And I will help you -- whatsoever you want to be, be! with all my blessings and with all my help."

 

The children come through you, but they belong to God, they belong to totality. Don't possess them. Don't start thinking as if they belong to you. How can they belong to you?

 

Once this vision arises in you, then -- then there will be no cruelty.

 

You ask: WHY ARE PARENTS SO CRUEL TO THEIR CHILDREN? IS THERE ANY SENSE IN MAKING THEM RESPONSIBLE?

 

No, I am not saying there is any sense in making parents responsible -- because they have suffered because of THEIR parents, and so on and so forth.... Understanding is needed. Finding scapegoats is of no help. You cannot simply say, "I am destroyed because my parents have destroyed me -- what can I do?" I know, parents ARE destructive, but if you become alert and aware you can get out of that pattern that they have created and woven around you.

 

You ALWAYS remain capable of getting out of any trap that has been put around you! Your freedom may have been encaged, but the freedom is such, is so intrinsic, that it cannot be utterly destroyed. It always remains, and you can find it again. Maybe it is difficult, arduous, hard, an uphill task, but it is not impossible.

 

There is no point in just throwing the responsibility, because that makes you irresponsible. That's what Freudian psychoanalysis has been doing to people -- that is its harm. You go to the psychoanalyst and he makes you feel perfectly good, and he says, "What can you do? Your parents were such -- your mother was such, your father was such, your upbringing was wrong. That's why you are suffering from all these problems." You feel good -- now you are no more responsible.

 

Christianity has made you feel responsible for two thousand years, has made you feel guilty, that you are the sinner. Now psychoanalysis goes to the other extreme: it simply says you are not the sinner, you are not to feel guilty -- you are perfectly okay. You forget about all guilt and you forget all about sin. Others are responsible!

 

Christianity has done much harm by creating the idea of guilt -- now psychoanalysis is doing harm from the other extreme, by creating the idea of irresponsibility.

 

You have to remember: the parents were doing something because they were taught to do those things -- their parents had been teaching them. They were brought up by parents also; they had not come from heaven directly. So what is the point of throwing the responsibility backwards? It doesn't help; it will not help to solve any problem. It will help only to unburden you from guilt. That is good, the good part; the beneficial part of psychoanalysis is that it unburdens you from guilt. And the harmful part is that it leaves you there; it does not make you feel responsible.

 

To feel guilty is one thing: to feel responsible is another thing. I teach you responsibility. What do I mean by responsibility? You are not responsible to your parents, and you are not responsible to any God, and you are not responsible to any priest -- you are responsible to your inner being. Responsibility is freedom! Responsibility is the idea that "I have to take the reins of my life in my own hands. Enough is enough! My parents have been doing harm -- whatsoever they could do they have done: good and bad, both they have done. Now I have become a mature person. I should take everything in my own hands and start living the way it arises in me. I should devote all my energies to my life now." And immediately you will feel a great strength coming to you.

 

Guilt makes you feel weak: responsibility makes you feel strong. Responsibility gives you heart again, confidence, trust.

 

That is the meaning of sannyas. Sannyas wants you to be free from Christianity, Hinduism, Jainism, Mohammedanism, and sannyas wants you to be free from Freudian psychoanalysis and things like that too. Sannyas wants you to live your life authentically, according to your innermost voice, not according to any other voice from anywhere. Not according to the Bible or according to the Koran. If God has spoken in a certain way in the Koran, it was specifically meant for Mohammed, not for you. It was God's dialogue with Mohammed, not with you. You will have to find your own dialogue with God. You will have to find your own Koran!

 

If Jesus has spoken those beautiful words, they are out of the dialogue that happened between him and the totality. Now don't go on repeating them. They are meaningless for you.

 

They are not BORN in you, they are not PART of you! They are like a plastic flower: you can bring a plastic rose and hang it on the rosebush -- yes, they are like that -- it is not the same as when a roseflower comes out of the rosebush itself.

 

You can deceive people. Those who don't know may be deceived. They may see so many beautiful flowers are blooming on the rosebush, and they are all plastic. But you cannot deceive the rosebush -- you cannot deceive yourself. You can go on repeating Jesus, but those words have not been uttered in your cars by God; they are not addressed to you. You are reading a letter addressed to somebody else! It is illegal; you should not open that envelope. You should search and find your own relationship with the totality.

 

That relationship I call responsibility. Response means spontaneous capacity to relate. Response means capacity to respond tc life situations according to your heart, not according to anybody else. When you start feeling that, you become an individual. Then you stand on your own feet.

 

And remember, if you stand on your own feet, then only one day will you be able to walk without feet and fly without wings. Otherwise not.

 

And you ask: AND HOW CAN ONE AVOID MAKING THE SAME MISTAKES?

 

JUST TRY TO UNDERSTAND THOSE MISTAKES. If you see the point, why they are committed, you will not commit them. Seeing a truth is transforming. Truth liberates. Just see the point! -- why your parents have destroyed you. Their wishes were good, but their awareness was not good; they were not aware people. They wanted you to be happy, certainly, they wished you all happiness. That's why they wanted you to become a rich man, a respected man; that's why they curbed your desires, cut your desires, moulded you, patterned you, structured you, gave you a character, repressed many things, enforced many things. They did whatsoever they could. Their wish was right: they wanted you to be happy, although they were not aware of what they were doing, although they themselves had never known what happiness is. They were unhappy people! and unaware.

 

Their wish was good -- don't feel angry about them. They did whatsoever THEY could. Feel sorry for them, but never angry at them. Don't feel any rage! They were helpless! They were caught in a certain trap. They had not known what happiness is, but they had some ideas that a happy person is one who has much money. They worked for it their whole lives; they wasted their whole lives in earning money, but they remained with that stupid idea that money brings happiness. And they tried to poison your being too. They were not thinking to poison you -- they were thinking they were pouring elixir in you. Their dreams were good, their wishes were good, but they were unhappy people and unaware people -- that's why they have done harm to you.

 

Now be aware. Search for happiness. Find out how to be happy. Meditate, pray, love. Live passionately and intensely! If you have known happiness, you will not be cruel to anybody -- you cannot be. If you have tasted anything of life, you will never be destructive to anybody. How can you be destructive to your own children? You cannot be destructive to ANYBODY at all.

 

If you have known awareness, then that's enough. You need not ask "And how can one avoid making the same mistakes?" If you are not happy and aware, you cannot avoid making the same mistakes -- you will make the same mistakes! You are bound to, you are doomed to make the same mistakes.

 

So I cannot give you a clue as to how to avoid -- I can only give you an insight. The insight is: your parents were unhappy -- please, you be happy. Your parents were unaware -- you be aware. And those two things -- awareness and happiness -- are not really two things but two aspects of the same coin.

 

Start by bang aware and you will be happy! And a happy person is a non-violent person.

 

And always remember: children are not adult; you should not expect adult things from children. They are children! They have a totally different vision, a different perspective. You should not start forcing your adultish attitudes upon them. Allow them to remain children, because they will never be again; and once lost, everybody feels nostalgia for the childhood, everybody feels those days were days of paradise. Don't disturb them.

 

Sometimes it is difficult for you to accept the children's vision -- because you have lost it yourself! A child is trying to climb a tree; what will you do? You immediately become afraid -- he may fall, he may break his leg, or something may go wrong. And out of your fear you rush and you stop the child. If you had known what joy it is to climb a tree, you would have helped so that the child could learn how to climb trees! You would have taken him to a school where it is taught how to climb trees. You would not have stopped him. Your fear is good -- it shows love, that the child may fall, but to stop the child from climbing the tree is to stop the child from growing.

 

There is something ESSENTIAL about climbing trees. If a child has NEVER been doing it, he will remain something poor, he will miss some richness -- for his whole life. You have deprived him of something beautiful, and there is no other way to know about it! Later on it will become more difficult for him to climb on the tree, it will look stupid or foolish or ridiculous.

 

Let him climb the tree. And if you are afraid, help him, go and teach him. You also climb with him! Help him learn so he doesn't fall. And once in a while, falling from a tree is not so bad either. Rather than being deprived forever....

 

The child wants to go out in the rains and wants to run around the streets in the rain, and you are afraid he may catch a cold or get pneumonia or something -- and your fear is right! So DO something so that he is more resistant to colds. Take him to the doctor; ask the doctor what vitamins should be given to him so that he can run in the rains and enjoy and dance and there is no fear that he will catch cold or will get pneumonia. But don't stop him. To dance in the streets when it is raining is such a joy! To miss it is to miss something very valuable.

 

If you know happiness and if you are aware, you will be able to feel for the child, how he feels.

 

A child is jumping and dancing and shouting and shrieking, and you are reading your newspaper, your stupid newspaper. And you know what is there -- it is always the same. But you feel disturbed. There is nothing in your newspaper, but you feel disturbed. You stop the child: "Don't shout! Don't disturb Daddy! Daddy is doing something great -- reading the newspaper." And you stop that running energy, that flow -- you stop that glow, you stop life. You are being violent.

 

And I am not saying that the child has always to be allowed to disturb you. But out of a hundred times, ninety times you are unnecessarily disturbed. And if you don't disturb him those ninety times, the child will understand. When you understand the child, the child understands you -- children are very very responsive. When the child sees that he is never prevented, then once you say, "I am doing something please..." the child will know that it is not from a parent who is constantly looking to shout at him. It is from a parent who allows everything.

 

Children have a different vision.

 

"Now, I want it quiet " said the teacher, "so quiet you can hear a pin drop."

 

A deep silence descended on the classroom. After about two minutes an anguished voice from the back shouted, "For Pete's sake, let it drop!"

 

It was the little boy's first day at school, and as soon as his mother had left him, he burst into tears. Despite all efforts on the part of his teacher and the headmistress, he went on crying and crying until finally, just before lunch, the teacher said in exasperation, "For heaven's sake, shut up child! It's lunch-time now, and then in a couple more hours you'll be going home and you'll see your mummy again."

 

At once the little boy stopped crying, "Will I?" he said. "I thought I had to stay here until I was sixteen!"

 

They have their vision, their understanding, their ways. Try to understand them. An understanding mind will always find a deep harmony arising between him and the child. It is the stupid, the unconscious, the non-understanding people, who go on remaining closed in their ideas and never look at the other's vision.... Children bring freshness into the world. Children are new editions of consciousness. Children are fresh entries of divinity into life. Be respectful, be understanding.

 

And if you are happy and alert, there is no need to be worried about how not to commit the same mistakes -- you will not commit. But then you have to be totally different from your parents. Consciousness will bring that difference.

 

-Osho, “Walk Without Feet, Fly Without Wings, #2, Q3”