VOICES
“Yes, risk-taking is inherently failure-prone.
Otherwise, it would be called sure-thing-taking.”
Tim MacMahon
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Flow
Parenting is supposed to be one of the most rewarding experiences in
life, but it isn't unless one approaches it with the same attention as
one would a sport or an artistic performance. In a study of flow in
motherhood, Maria Allison and Margaret Carlisle Duncan described several
examples of how the psychic energy invested in a child's growth can
produce enjoyment in parenting. Here a mother describes the times she
achieves flow ...
'. . . when I am working with my daughter, when she's discovering something new. A new cookie recipe that she has accomplished, that she made herself, and artistic work that she has done that she is proud of. Her reading is one thing that she is really into, and we read together. She reads to me and I read to her and that's a time when I sort of lose touch with the rest of the world, I'm totally absorbed in what I am doing... '
To experience such simple pleasures of parenting, one has to pay attention, to know what the child is 'proud of', what she is 'into', then one has to devote more attention to share these activities with her. Only when there is harmony between the goals of the participants, when everyone is investing psychic energy into a joint goal, does being together become enjoyable.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow. Basic Books, 1997, 112 to 113.
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“He drew a circle that shut me out —
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!”
— Edwin Markham
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A guiding philosophy of our work with children ...
“This, to my mind, should be based on a feeling of nearness, of
companionship, of respect towards those in our care. When a hiker is
feeling the weight of his pack and the hardness of the road on a very
hot day, how much it helps if someone else falls into step beside him
and goes with him some part of the way. Perhaps they fall into a long
conversation; perhaps they hardly exchange a word. In either case the
same feeling is there. If with all our professional skill and knowledge
we can give a child this feeling of not being alone on a difficult road,
everything else we want to do will flow from this.
F.G. Lennhoff, Being Sent Away: The admission of children to residential settings. Shotton Hall, 1967
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“What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the
community want for all of its children.”
— J.C. Lathrop
Presidential Address to National Conference on
Social Welfare, 1919 