What do we teach our children?

Written on 5/20/13

By Jennifer R. Gilliland

I posted a picture this last week to my Facebook page of my seven-year-old son and one-year-old grandson playing with Legos. I thought it was cute, adorable, and I loved it.

Ashton and Hunter

The first comment was from a stranger I vaguely knew. She said, “Your teaching those kids to be over weight. Please help them stay slimer.” (I’ve left the grammatical and misspelling errors intact.)

I was instantly offended, furious, and heartbroken. Why would you target two beautiful children who are doing exactly what they should be doing: playing? And Legos? I thought they were educational toys? Don’t we give them to our children to help broaden their minds and fine tune their motor skills? My son was teaching my grandson about sharing and how to put the blocks together so they would stick. They were creating characters, people, and houses and using their imaginations. What more could you ask?

I was horrified and most of the comments from my friends and family that followed also expressed my same sentiment. Who was she to judge a picture of two innocent children playing the most basic of kids games? So what if they were indoors and playing on the family room carpet. The point is, playing with Legos is not going to make my son and grandson fat or overweight. Instead, they’re going to learn how to build their minds, construct neurons to places not yet mapped in their brains, and create worlds where only their imaginations are the limit. Who am I to stop this process? As a parent, I think it is my role to encourage this behavior.

Whitney Houston once sang “The children are our future,” and she wasn’t wrong. But it leaves me to wonder what kind of future we are creating if the lessons our children are learning is to be rude, critical, disrespectful, and tactless. That you can get away with anything on the internet because “It’s not a real conversation.”

The questions then is: What do we teach our children?

How about to be nice for starters. To treat each person they meet, whether in person or on the internet, with kindness, dignity, and respect. To not only be concerned with their health and eating healthy, but also being a good human being.

Being a parent is a monumental task. You are raising the future, the people that will be deciding if you go in the old folks home that is nice or one on the borderline to being closed down by the state. Do you want an ubber-healthy, svelte son/daughter who is rude, disrespectful, and horrible, or the opposite?

I vote for the later. I would rather my children be a little overweight but be superb, beautiful human beings. Whose lasting impression on the world is how they don’t stay silent when they see evil occurring, who stand up for the little guy and, when push came to shove, they would choose the oft times difficult path of good and right instead of the easy path.

I think it is my job as a parent to teach them, to build them, into good and righteous human beings. I hope that in the end, by giving my son and grandson Legos, I am teaching them that the sky is the limit and they can help build whatever their heart’s desire.

Maybe we as adults need to play with Legos more often. Then we can remember what it means to share and build a better community for our children.