As parents, we model what’s essential in life long before we realize our children are watching.
A toddler, when given a doll, will instantly cradle it, offer it a bottle, or attempt to feed it make-believe food while opening her own mouth to demonstrate, just like Mommy and Daddy do when they feed her.
Such behaviors aren’t instinctive to our nature.
They’re a product of the way we’ve been nurtured. We learned them even when our parents didn’t realize they were teaching us.
That’s an important distinction to recognize, because sometimes the mentoring process gets disrupted.
Our family adopted a stray kitten who was separated from his mother when he was just a few days old. He’s a fine healthy fellow now…but he doesn’t purr. Until we fostered this kitty, I assumed purring with pleasure was instinctive to cats, but not so! Kittens learn to purr because their mother purrs with pleasure as she nurses them. The pleasant association is modeled for them…or it’s not. Our kitty DOES show his gratitude and affection in other ways, but the window for learning to purr has passed him by.
Many years ago, we knew a family who adopted a baby boy from a Romanian orphanage. At that time, orphanages in that country were so understaffed that there was no one to hold the babies or rock them. Their bottle was delivered to the crib and propped up on a blanket where the baby could turn his head and find the nipple. No one held him, rocked him, or sang to him. When he was dirty, he was held by the feet under a stream of cold water and quickly returned to his crib. There were many other children to be attended. No time to make any single child feel special.
The effects of such a rough start showed.
This precious boy came to our friends’ loving arms when he was about 6 months old. Suddenly he had parents who cared for him individually, who rocked him and sang lullabyes, tucked him into bed after a warm bath, and carefully fed him plenty each day…and he had no idea how to respond to their love. He seemed locked inside a protective wall. Stoic. Resiliant, because until now he had no other choice.
He was a survivor, but it took him a long time to learn how to relate to others and realize that he could ask for help and offer love and gratitude in return.
Consider, please. Has our culture delivered children to group daycare facilities and government schools for so long that we’ve disrupted and even forgotten how children were once nurtured at home?
Have we adopted the view that being “just a mom” is somehow a unimportant and unfulfilling?
In 1865, William Ross Wallace wrote a poem called What Rules the World.
Though his style of language is well over a century “out-of-date,” I’m convinced that the thoughts he expressed are as essential now as ever…and perhaps moreso.
Please read them, consider how our culture has suffered from the lack of nurture during childhood, and be encouraged that your role as a mother is absolutely essential!
What Rules the World
by William Ross Wallace
Blessings on the hand of women!
Angels guard its strength and grace.
In the palace, cottage, hovel,
Oh, no matter where the place;
Would that never storms assailed it,
Rainbows ever gently curled,
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.
Infancy’s the tender fountain,
Power may with beauty flow,
Mothers first to guide the streamlets,
From them souls unresting grow–
Grow on for the good or evil,
Sunshine streamed or evil hurled,
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.
Woman, how divine your mission,
Here upon our natal sod;
Keep–oh, keep the young heart open
Always to the breath of God!
All true trophies of the ages
Are from mother-love impearled,
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.
Blessings on the hand of women!
Fathers, sons, and daughters cry,
And the sacred song is mingled
Withe the worship in the sky–
Mingles where no tempest darkens,
Rainbows evermore are hurled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.
Indeed. :’)
