A Child's Unexpected Words have Profound Effect

Susan Borowski comes to grip with the hardships of being a single mum.

A child's unexpected words

Several years ago, but not so many years that I have forgotten, I was a newly divorced mom of a young child.

Being a single mom of a five-year-old boy had its own set of hardships, but the situation was made even worse by my loneliness. I was overworked, overstressed, and had no time for myself. And contrary to what I believed would happen, no relationship materialized to "save" me from my difficult and frustrating life.

When my son was with his dad, I missed my son terribly. But when my son was with me, I was thinking about all the work I should be getting done but couldn't because I was too busy taking care of him. I wasn't actually "with" him. I was too upset about my lot in life to really enjoy our time together, so I would take my frustrations out on him. I yelled at him for any little thing, even though he was only five and didn't know any better.

One day after a particularly trying afternoon of yelling, he looked at me, and in a matter-of-fact voice, said, "Why are you so mad?" He didn't ask, "Why are you so mad at me?"—he merely wanted to know why I was mad in general. There was no accusation, no hurt in his voice, just the simple question. And in that moment, I realized that even my five-year-old could discern what I could not—that I wasn't really mad at him, I was just mad at life.

That was a wake-up call I will never forget. How this young child could have a moment of such clarity, could pierce my soul to not only see what was wrong, but point it out to me, was a revelation. My eyes opened and my own cares fell away as I knelt down and held my son to me with tears in my eyes. All that mattered in that moment was him. His needs, his wants. Taking the time to see him, be with him, and enjoy our time together. I was completely missing out, and I didn't even realize it. He did.

I have never forgotten that incident or the lesson I learned from it. It serves to remind me that all that really matters is the here and now. It's so easy to get caught up in the regrets of the past and the worries about the future, completely forgetting that the present is where we live our lives.

The past is a teaching tool. There is no point in getting caught up in regret for what has been or what could have been, because it can't be changed. We are not meant to dwell on it. We are meant to take what lessons we can from the past, learn from our mistakes, and move on. This means letting go of the pain and accepting what has been. That may not happen overnight, but the longer we dwell on the past, the longer we take to heal from it.

As for the future…it makes no sense to worry about a future that may never be. We can drive ourselves crazy with "what ifs" and unfounded fears, but all we can really do is project the future we want based on the life we live today. Our decisions today should be based on our enjoyment of the things we have in our present. When we appreciate what we have (in my case, my beautiful son) instead of dwelling on what we don't have (a marriage, an intact family), we can see and appreciate the blessings of each day.

When we appreciate, we practice gratefulness, which makes our lives that much fuller. When we live in the moment, we don't see the past, don't see the future, we just see what is right in front of us. Had my son not jolted me into the present with his profound words, I could have missed his younger years altogether. I might have been there physically, but those years would have passed right by me, unnoticed, until the day I woke up and realized they were gone. Instead, I relished those younger years. I can say we enjoyed life and enjoyed each other, and even though he's almost a teenager now, we still do.

All because of those inspired words spoken to a broken, unseeing mom when he was five. Those words were a gift I will always remember.

Susan Borowski

Embracing Childness

I have a personal philosophy called "Embracing Childness".
Here is where it starts.

During the time before I went to school, I was cared for by my elderly Grandparents while my mother and father worked long hours in laboratories in the city. My Grandmother could not drive, so we often walked together around the suburban streets, bland in nature but vibrant with gardens.

This description almost defines those childhood days for me - pleasingly predictable, stable and routine, but with my own flashes of colour and sublime joy.

My Grandfather and Grandmother would sleep after lunch each day and I clearly remember the moment when I finally rebelled against this tradition and was allowed to remain wakeful, but ostracised, in the back yard. It became my world. I would play games by myself, never having any playmates nearby, and investigate the minutiae of grass, insects and plants.

When I felt brave I would climb the brick walls surrounding the compost heaps in the corner of the back fence and, balancing on bare feet, gaze at the wasteland of the neighbouring yard, completely concreted- over and shimmering in the early afternoon heat. I often wondered why anyone would willingly cover the earth with something dead and unpleasant and grey. It made me feel delicately sorrowful inside. Then I would look into the empty back gardens of the other houses bordering my grandparent’s property and imagine them to be distant, unreachable lands, shady and green with a strangeness I would never know.

From these lonely hours I learned much that has benefited me over the years. Silence. Inquiry. Imagination. Self-reliance.

Once I climbed the enormous pine tree that dwarfed the centre of the lawn, higher than I had ever reached before. This tree was my second home. A small gap in the branches provided an entrance to my private realm. Inside was a cathedral of empty space enclosed inside a shell of waxy foliage and laddered with branches. Heaven. However, I recall this tree teaching me a most important lesson, having once climbed to the point where I could poke my head out of the top. I felt pinned by the innumerable small twigs I had forced myself through and could no longer see my feet. I couldn’t move. I had lost my nerve. I called and called for my grandmother, but when she finally emerged from the house I was struck with the thought that she was too old to climb the tree and help me. What could I do?

Somehow she convinced me that there was absolutely no choice but for me to climb down by myself. She filled me with the confidence that every little downward motion was a step in the right direction. Overwhelmed by the whole (or height) of my problem, I had panicked and frozen. Now with her cajoling and probably bribery with a biscuit, I summoned the courage to move. Finally, with her calling instructions to me about where to place my feet, I discovered that to tackle the descent I needed to take it slowly. One small step at a time and focus on the outcome. Fear is defeated.

The point is that you learn so much as a child that you discard as an adult. Life needs re-examining at some point, your compass re-setting and I believe that childhood holds the key. Think about this example. What were your impulses towards animals when you were small? Did you hate to think that any harm might come to a beloved pet or a wild creature in your yard? Isn’t this a true expression of your natural capacity for compassion that persists until this day? You were born that way! If it is truly your heart’s wisdom to do no harm to animals, then perhaps you should consciously consider vegetarianism as a life choice.

By examining your ‘factory settings’ with an adult perspective, you can shed light on many of your behaviours. For instance, do you remember a feeling long ago of breath- taking joy where you were lost in a simple moment? Time stood still and there was nothing but bliss. As a time- poor and harried grown-up, do you need to get leglessly pissed to experience a similar (yet somehow imperfect) exaltation? Have you ever stopped to examine why you take the boozy shortcut to feelings of relaxed, open, happiness that every human craves? You even take this shortcut with full knowledge of the nasty consequences.

So here’s the most commonly posed question by children everywhere - WHY? Why do you choose this? Are there alternatives? I can think of a few outstanding choices that will also stop you feeling time- poor and harried. How about becoming happy, relaxed and open the old-fashioned way – by enjoying the moment and forgetting everything else for a while. Be a kid. Go into nature, sing your heart out, swim across a river, whatever you love, and enjoy it simply as it is. The world will still be there when you come back and you might find that things that once bothered you, matter little now. Don’t you think it is so much more authentic to honour your need for relaxation, openness, and happiness in this way?

“Embracing Childness” can be applied to almost anything in life. When we were little, our minds were not as polluted as they are today. It puzzled me why the adults would want to indulge in something as horrible and sad as the news, or boring as TV sport when there were dams to be built in flowing gutters and lizards to tame in the back yard. I lived in the same world as the adults, the same house, the same reality, yet I was largely unaffected by the media’s judgment about how Mr Jones is running the country, how many goals the lacrosse team got, and how sad it is that there is a war going on in some place I didn’t know existed.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that you need to cut yourself off from the world and become a hermit. Rather, be like a child and trust that the information you need to know will come to you from other sources at the right time, and in the right amount. Life is an adventure to take as it comes - like a boy scout, you are always prepared. But often you will find you have unconsciously allowed yourself to be hijacked by someone else’s opinion that the world is a hideousness, fearful place. When a skewed version of reality is shoved at you in ‘helpful half-hourly updates’, it generates unfounded fear and paralyses you until all you can see is misery. Life is not misery - your child-self knows that.

You can choose your information sources just like choosing a movie at the DVD library. Are you stuck in the horror section when the next shelf over is bursting with sci- fi, art-house, documentaries, and comedy? Are you even aware that you are in a shop full of these other choices? If you focus on what really matters, as a child would – the happiness of helping others, the splashiness of a puddle, the real and tangible things in the ‘DVD library’ around you – you will see what is in your core nature. Love. Gratitude. Compassion. Honour. Positive action. If you bring these things into your adult life and live them each day, then you will change your world.

Then, of course, there is the story of me trying to ‘fly’ home at age 5 when I first started school. But we’ll save that for later...

Ruth Kenrick-Smith

More from Ruth Kenrick-Smith: THE NEW RIGHT

Ruth is a Melbourne based writer and former broadcaster. She lives in the hills with her husband, two children and two incredibly silly cats.