A friend posted a photograph of her newborn son on Facebook this morning and it got me thinking again about the essential creativity of babies. Having a close family member expecting their first child sometime in spring, these are thoughts close to my heart. New born babies look so helpless, so very vulnerable and dependent on their care givers. Yet there is an incredible strength in a young baby.
We congratulate parents on the birth of their baby yet how many think to thank the baby for creating the parent?
Has very much changed from the days I grew up in, when I was constantly being reminded of everything my parents did for me and how I should be grateful? Do any of us choose our parents? The choice lies with them, very often, whether or not to have children so why would gratitude come from the child?
I very much hope the family members who are expecting their first baby are thankful to the child for its essential creativity.
Does the same apply to a child born outside the parameters of “normal”? Maybe a child who is damaged at birth or, who later becomes disabled or is diagnosed with a life changing condition? I think so. Feel free to argue. What the child then does is to change ordinary parents into extraordinary ones. It becomes the responsibility of the parents to grow into the challenge. They have to grow in strength while the child still needs the basic love and care required by any young, living, being.
It is a very real possibility the baby expected by my family member will be autistic, like its dad, who has Asperger’s syndrome. All a new life needs is to breathe. Nothing else really matters.
#autism #parenting #special needs #gifts #Asperger’s syndrome #motivational #spirituality
