Innocence

Samantha sings all the time. It makes me so happy to hear her sweet little voice singing. Today, on the way home from the grocery store, she was singing "Jacob, Jacob, oh so sweet. Jacob, Jacob, oh so sweet. Thank you God for Jacob." This was followed by a verse for Mommy, a verse for lambie, a verse for Daddy...and then she sang "Samantha, Samantha, oh so sweet. Thank you God for Samantha."

I smiled. And I thought, she doesn't know, she is too young...you don't sing something like that about yourself. And I caught myself being a little relieved that she wasn't singing that in front of someone else.

But why? Because you just don't do that? Well, why not? Because it's prideful? Yes I think that is what we would say. We should, instead be modest.

But in thinking about this more, I don't think it actually is prideful at all. Recognizing the good things about yourself and being thankful that God created you is not prideful. In fact, shouldn't we all be able to do that? To say...I am good at caring about other people (or whatever quality you have), thank you God for making me and for giving me this gift.

Rather than pride, isn't this actually recognition of God's creation and gifts to us and thankfulness for those very things? Maybe this is the root of the self-esteem problems that so many of our children have. They have been drilled out of recognizing anything good in themselves.

Maybe we should all pay a little more attention to the little children...and try to learn from them more often, rather than only trying to change them into what society finds appropriate.

I am now resolved to try to think about why I am correcting my daughter (and my son as he gets older) before I do so. Is it something that is not acceptable to most of our society? Why? Is it really something that needs to change? Or is it childlike innocence that should be encouraged and preserved?