Respect Starts With Respecting Children
The true nature of power.
The receiving end of care is vulnerable. To receive care, some wish to be vulnerable, some pretend to and some actually are. When receiving care is considered advantageous, the vulnerability becomes burdensome for both giver and receiver. There are some forms of vulnerability that cannot be regarded as a burden. The initial phase of life is vulnerable and it depends on maturity to be nurtured. The vitality of life cycle depends on how maturity treats vulnerability.
Maturity was once vulnerable. In that phase it depends on others for living. This dependence is scary. But in the presence of nurturing maturity around, vulnerability flourishes securely. The intimidating strength of maturity overwhelms vulnerability. It learns to rely on maturity more than its own potential. The vulnerability covets to have the strength of maturity. It craves to either have that strength or be under it. This yearning rushes the growth. Walking is forced into strides. Even when matured, it habitually covets. The vertical desire now expands on the grown-up horizon endeavoring to become the most. The fears of vulnerability get tattooed on maturity.
In this precipitated transition the essence of vulnerability is never felt or cared for. What receives care is the transition. The initial stage coagulates. The inner growth is stunted. This infirmity is visible in the impaired emotional intellect in maturity. Moreover, the essence of vulnerability that completes the circle of life is substituted with fear of being weak. This fear is acquired therefore needs constant effort to be preserved. The stunted maturity carries out this task as its highest responsibility.
To balance the life cycle, we need to entail equality in different states and forms of growth. Initial phase is vulnerable because there no other way it can be in this whole cycle. How do we assess our own vulnerability decides how we treat it. Like vulnerability can’t rear, maturity can’t germinate. Both are parts of one process. All phases are equally needed to complete the cycle. Why is it that we cannot deem vulnerability and maturity equal?
Because we the maturity have never learned to recognize essence of being. We have learned to measure, reason, and rationalize but not feel the essence of any of those learnings. There are no edges in a state if we can feel the state we are in. We are capable of feeling the slightest movement within but this capability is retarded by the bias of outward perception. We don’t need an extrinsic validation to use our power yet strength is conditioned to be validated only externally. I would like to remind you that only you have the control over your powers. Let’s not confuse influence with control. This realization is vulnerable, that’s why we neglect it. What is ours is a vulnerable vigor. The vigor of a child.
The child grows; not to mature but to live. Life is the same for a child or adult. No boon or bane checks age before transpiring. A child needs rearing and an adult is capable of rearing. There must not be any other reason for child rearing. If we take any credit for caring for the vulnerable, we are not the maturity we think we are. In fact we are dangling somewhere in our protracted adolescence. The stunted adulthood is weaker than vulnerability, and dangerous. This weakness, unlike that of children, is insidious. We can see the demonstration in the current state of the world. We infuse insecurities in the pliable vulnerability and execute them throughout our lives. How necessary is this dysfunction — NOT AT ALL.
Children learn from the environment around. If their surrounding inculcate a helpless subservience, they will assimilate the helplessness and grow into stunted adults. We don’t need pedagogy but mindful care to naturally mature. In the reward and punishment based race, the inner growth is chocked. The brain grows by impulsively grabbing lessons that seem rewarding. Growth has stages but this vertical stretch knows no limit, hence snaps. Vulnerability is far more intelligent than stunted maturity. Logic, reason, rationality, all cognitive abilities exist in the spectrum of emotional awareness. Child learns more from sensing than teaching. Rather than instructing as fastidious caregivers if we can just be around as mindful adults, child will learn more.
It is high time we started valuing vulnerability equal to maturity. Equality does not demand similarity. Things can be different yet equal. We must understand that the diversity of phases contribute their unique potential to balance the whole process, that being different does not mean being above or beneath, and that there is no isolated stage in a cycle. Standing at a different position than others does not make us any greater or lesser. Now is the time to take off this dated grading lens and start respecting the susceptible vulnerability.
The liability maturity has towards vulnerability is what we call being mature. Caring for the vulnerable is neither an achievement nor an obligation. We are so engrossed in give and take that we perceive taking care as a trade. We expect compensation for taking care. Out of this greed we burden children with our expectations. Caring or rather not harming the susceptible, is considered civility. The vulnerable is easy to exploit. The stunted maturity, forever insecure with fear of being weak, abuses its position in all possible ways.
Not only children but nature is also susceptible. The essence of phases can be learned easily by observing the rhythm of the nature. The power of vulnerability is taken for granted to follow the blind path guided by fears ingrained in a child. The old minds were too wise to see their true nature. But we, the less wise, can. Not only the vulnerability in children and nature but also in the stunted maturity needs to be embraced. When we accept our vulnerability, all our fears dissolve.
Let’s not fear or deride but respect vulnerability. The true capability of strength lies in accepting incapability. The impairment of our growth is not permanent. Embrace the scared child in you. Look at its face, its expression, feel its fears. More than everything, respect the child. Respect the vulnerability that keeps itself growing in this turbulent world. The world needs the vigor of vulnerability to be healed.
