2. Take Care with Labels

"When you teach your children that certain
things are good,
they are likely to call all different things bad.
If you teach them that certain things are
beautiful,
they may see all other things as ugly.

Call difficult things, 'difficult,'
and easy things, 'easy,'
without avoiding one and seeking the other
and your children will learn self-confidence.
Call results, 'results,'
without labeling one as success
and another as failure
and your children will learn freedom from fear.
Call birth, 'birth,'
and death, 'death,'
without seeing one as good
and the other as evil
and your children will be at home with life.

Notice today how your children label things.
'This stinks.'
'That's stupid.'
Don't correct them.
Just notice and consider how they learned.
Start today to teach a different lesson."

I want so much for my daughter, especially the lessons I could never seem to learn as I was growing up: That one is good, right, and worth it because one exists; that mistakes are for learning and growth, not shame and consternation; that all people--every single person on the planet--are entitled to have their needs met and to be loved. I try every day to release myself from the judgments and condemnations I absorbed from a world that never seemed to want, need, or hear me. Above all I try to understand that in each person's most vulnerable heart, all exist in such a world at some time or other. I want to teach my daughter to embrace this vulnerability and master the gift that it is, so that she can live, and love, tenderly.