The Disappearance of Childhood; Not Children By Dr.

Hanaan Balala

Children, I find, are the most magical and miraculous beings, literally. To a child, magic and miracles are not beliefs they are reality. That is why children who are cared for and allowed a sense of self-worth work miracles in their lives. The extraordinary they make ordinary. Think Mozart and Michael Jackson. Think all children today with respect to technological adeptness. Jesus was just an early precursor of what children increasingly ARE today.

In some traditions, young children are deemed angels and are treasured. This, however, is increasingly fading away as modernity and globalisation is fast corroding culture and replacing it with pop culture.

Instead of caring for children and allowing them to unfold within a loving environment, children are brought up, implying an active doing on the part of the family or parents, in a certain manner or according to certain

formulae. So much emphasis is placed on growing up, education and success that a child is hardly allowed to just to be what it is; a child.

As I observe children today, and I do my fair share of observing, there is little warranted concern over children growing up or learning. I find children to be incredibly perceptive and wise both book-wise and other-wise. They speak eloquently and are capable of dealing with other children and adults better than some adults can. A small wonder.

The real concern is the disappearance of childhood not children. That age of pure magic and wonder where one has the right to unconditional love and indulgence. An age when one is allowed to dream without being told to grow up or live in the real world; An age when the meaning of impossible is yet to be learned.

The tragedy of education and growing up is the death knell it spells on the creative genius of children. Society

and education trains us in mediocrity then demands the extraordinary from those it trains to be ordinary. It is no wonder that despair, disappointment and disillusion is prevalent among the youth. They feel betrayed by a society that ill equips them for life and often robs them of their innate genius.

Some would say that to indulge such a fantastical age is simply to cushion a child from reality and delay the childs growing up.

Yet childhood to life is like sleep to daily activity. The former is absolutely vital to the optimal experience of the latter. Without a proper childhood, just like proper sleep, ones engagement and participation in Life is

compromised. The longer and more restful sleep is, the more engaged and energetic one is during the day. Likewise, the longer and richer (not materially) the experience of childhood, the more engaged, creative and grounded one is in Life, generally.

While we are often reminded of the need for adequate sleep and rest, the opposite is true concerning the preservation of childhood and honouring the child within, even as an adult.

The irony is that as adults we are berated for not dreaming enough yet how can one dream as an adult if denied dreaming as a child? We are reminded of the importance of creativity yet how can one be creative, in the true sense of that word, if robbed of those childhood years when ever moment of life is an act of pure creation?

Childhood to Life is like dawn to the day. Childhood, like dawn, is often the most creative (and perhaps important) part of the day/Life. Hence, the early bird catches the worm! And, early to bed early to rise keeps one healthy, wealthy and wise!

The child within lives with us as long as we are alive. We are all children at heart; hence Jesus spoke of being like children if one is to enter the kingdom of heaven. Yet we

have worked collectively as a civilisation to suppress the child and cultivate the disciplined and educated individual equipped to compete with one another instead of loving and caring for each other. We have shut down our hearts and live exploiting through our minds. In so doing we have created a dysfunctional society of egos running rampant competing with and exploiting one another. This is what we are teaching our children today. This is what has robbed us of childhood. Greed.

Children, the little angels in infant bodies, are residents of heaven and continue to reside therein throughout

childhood. Children thus are the greatest teachers of Love, the greatest healers of hurt or discordance and the greatest manifesters of miracles.

Find the child within; allow yourself a childhood, even as an adult. Only then will the world start honouring childhood once more; that fantastical age we are all entitled to and nature deliberately created.

Children havent gone anywhere; weve just been robbed of childhood, thats all.