A month for kids

Did you know that November 1 is National Children’s Day? Maybe by the time this column gets to press there will have been some publicity around this day, but at the time of writing it is still a closed book.

I had to spend some time finding out who was responsible for what on this day. Eventually, through some contacts in the Social Welfare department, I established that it is the responsibility of the Office of the Rights of the Child in the Office of the Presidency. An event is to be hosted somewhere in the Free State. But that is not really the issue.

My concern is the way we look at things. Is Children’s Day to be concerned with children’s rights, children’s responsibilities, child abuse, child trafficking? Or is it a celebration of childhood, or the beauty of child-likeness, something that Jesus has called us to emulate?

My concern is that children may be considered out of the context of their families, whatever form the families take or whether they are big, small, happy or not.

It could be said that many hundreds of thousands of orphaned children now do not have a family, but in a sense that is not true. Granted their fathers might have been absent, and their mothers have died, but their grandparents and other members of their extended family are providing what care they can and siblings especially are caring for one another. That is family too, and children need a family, because who else can or will replace a family in their developmental process. Pope John Paul II in his apostolic exhortation Familiaris consortio provided a definition of a family as “an intimate community of life and love bonded together for life by blood, marriage or adoption”. He described the tasks of a family, the first of which is to form and build that intimate community.

We cannot look at children, or women for that matter, in isolation. Without a contextual view of society with families as the basic building blocks, we are perpetuating the individualist social agenda.

Children are vulnerable, they are hurt. Considering what this means is the November family life theme of “Love heals children’s hurts”. Children also bring tremendous joy to their families at the many different stages they go through. It struck me recently that as a granny I am not all that involved with children, my own grandchildren or others, and I tend to see the problems rather than the joys. A beauty magazine in an article on well-being tells me that children laugh 150 times a day and adults only six times. Laughing is very healthy. Apparently it gives you a mini-facelift, fights stress, boosts your mind power and even triggers the release of disease-fighting chemicals in the body.

So, in whatever context your family is operating, celebrate the children in your life, laugh with them, thank God for them, be conscious of their hurts, and pray for their needs and the needs of all the children in our country. And together with our children, do whatever is possible for other children.

I believe that it is not a question of making demands or enforcing laws, but love that will heal the hurts, love that makes us conscious of and sensitive towards others’ needs, compassionate, generous and forgiving. It is also parental love that will dictate to a child what behaviour is unacceptable, and administer reasonable punishment when necessary.

Idealistic yes, but who can say that Jesus wasn’t an idealist, and a happy one at that?

Have you met my friend Jesus? is the title of the Advent to Christmas booklet I am preparing this year for children. Are the children in our lives empowered to say this to other children, to their friends and even to you?

• For more on the theme of “Love heals children’s hurts” visit ww.marfam.org.za