What Do We Tell The Kids?

March 6, 2021

My Vision —To have mastered the art of playing the game of life with commitment, joy, compassion and enthusiasm, regardless of circumstances… including chaos.  This vision is a self-created choice.

The question, “What Do We Tell the Kids?” is one of the most powerful questions of our time.  Not easy to answer.  Fortunately, there a fable, “Waves of Oneness” by Peter Melton, that provides a useful first step.   My plan is to send it to each child and to each grandchild.  Read by the author on: https://petermelton.com/2007/09/26/waves-of-oneness/  If you want printed copies, drop me an email at HarveyWAustin@Yahoo.com.

After reading it aloud a time or two, each of the readers … especially if one is a child … might be open to a larger set of questions — “What did you come here for?  Why did you come at this time? Why did you choose us as your parents? What is your purpose here?” 

These are not questions to be answered but rather to be “dwelled in”. 

If the child is willing, able to remember, or sufficiently insightful, this fable may be able to set the stage for their answers, often surprising.

There are two more steps I am considering.  The first is to create a limited edition of a collection of my memoir-writings, a hundred or more, and send a copy to each of my children and to each grandchild. These are short vignettes of my life, none more than a page and a half.

As part of that book, Gail Gulino, my sister, has agreed to write a genealogical section, placing each reader clearly in a lineage of both ancestors and descendants.

The last step is intended for the older reader, providing them with an up-to-date powerful article that thoroughly and clearly delineates our world’s predicament, deals with the futility of solutions, and suggests how each of us cam live lives of joy and compassion in the face of this predicament.  “Facing Extinction” by Catherine Ingram.    https://livingresilience.net/facing-extinction-catherine-ingram/

These are my personal answers to the question, “What Do We Tell the Kids?”

What will you tell your own children?