A gift of life

At Christmas these days, gifts are certainly one of the things that preoccupy people’s minds. And the popular idea of a gift is something that one “gets.” It’s a boring Christmas if one doesn’t get anything.

Even at home, kids expect to get something from their parents, who in turn feel obliged to meet their kids’ expectations. Incidentally, this attitude among modern parents to try to lavish their kids with things is not limited to Christmastime only. The whole year round they tend to surround their young with luxuries that they, the parents themselves, never knew of in their own youth.

There is, indeed, a parental compulsion to give to their dear young ones – at Christmas, especially. But there should be a limit. Indulging the kids too much with material treats can deflect their attention from the real meaning of family, in the same way that giving them too much comfort and convenience can blind them of the real secret to a full life.

Over-protected and over-provided young people might learn to expect to simply be given a life, to “get” it, and be on their way. That’s not so. Their life is something that they have to make on their own. The most that their parents can do is assist them.

Parental love means so much more than providing comforts and handing out treats. It is a responsibility that includes a hand that strokes and a hand that strikes. A good parent is one that is quick to praise a good deed by the kids and ready to chastise them of their mistakes.

Parents cannot live life on their children’s behalf. No one ever gets a ready-made life; everyone creates their own. Often, a good life is shaped through a difficult environment; difficulty awakens the courageous drive and endurance of the person’s slumbering soul. As one learns to steadily weather through adversities, he gains control of his life and becomes an inspiration to others.

In this increasingly bewildering modern world, young people need to learn poise, balance, level-headedness, good sense and moral strength. These are qualities that traverse existences – valuable in the here-and-now as well as in the hereafter. A strong faith in God has to be developed, too. All religions preach that faith in God contributes to strength of character, and that it enables man to stand up under things that otherwise would astound him or crush him.

Mankind has been continually waging, generation after generation across the centuries, a fight between free indulgence and self-control, between immorality and decent living, between faith in God and total reliance on themselves. The whole point of this longstanding struggle is to prove whether man is really a creature of wisdom or is actually just an arrogant fool.

Parents have an important role to play in how their children turn out to be. The best gift they can give is not necessarily something for the kids to momentarily enjoy – but something for the kids to become.