Spiritual Motherhood and Raising Small Children

The raising of children varies very much in different cultures and one can see different results depending upon the culture. When for example in eastern cultures, particularly Indian culture, but in most eastern cultures you will find that before the age of five the child can do no wrong. There is no distinction made between the boy and the girl, they are given unconditional love and attention by all of the parents and family members and they can do no wrong. Everything they do is considered sweet and they are praised. In anything that they express, they are given so much praise. Have you observed this?

Yes, this is done and it creates a certain mental confidence in the individual growing up. It is very good for the child before the age of five that they get this type of positive approach. And if they do something naughty, they are just laughed at, “Oh tsk, tsk, naughty child, they did not know any better.” So it is ignored if they do naughty acts and they are given so much praise and confidence in the least thing they do. This is very good psychology with the young child. Even when the child is in the terrible twos and they become bratty and are screaming and yelling and want their way, the best approach is to just laugh it off and ignore it. When they do the good act then you praise them so much and when they are naughty, you just ignore it or take a light approach because they are very small. They don’t know any better. But you don’t give them a lot of attention for the temper tantrum, just ignore it, make light of it, don’t give any strength to it. And when they are sweet, you say, “Oh what a sweet child, “ and then you praise and you give lots and lots of love. The child treated like this will soon not want to give any temper tantrum. They will see, “Oh, Mommy and Daddy love me so much, and anything I do they think it is very great.” So they will feel good about themselves and they don’t want to throw into any temper tantrum, and when they throw any temper tantrum, nobody cares at all, so it does not do any good.

So that type of child will be well adjusted and well behaved. This is the best way for the first five years. They have maximum love and no negative attention to negative behavior. Before the age of five years except for a very rare child, they will not be prone to sadhana. By five years of age they can be given nama mantra. In the early years though, though they don’t do sadhana yet themselves, to sit on the lap of the parent while the parent meditates, to be in the room while the parent meditates and learn to sit quietly near while the parent meditates, this will give them a loving feeling or after reading them a story at night while they are going to bed, they see that Mommy and Daddy always sit next to them in the bed and do their meditation, so they will feel the warm comforting feeling of the meditation vibration going into their sleep and it will affect their minds and their development. If they are around the parent while the parent does sadhana in this way it is very good.

Another point is: the child should not be left alone. The early ages of the childhood, it has become fashionable in some countries to think that the child should be independent and that they should sleep in their own room, that they should have their own bed; they should not be so attached. Goodness, they are completely dependent; they cannot even survive without the parent. Of course they will be completely attached. And why should they not be? What is to the child to sleep in the room by itself when it cannot manage for itself? It is just in a crib. What a frightening experience to put the little child through. Rather they should sleep near to the parents. They should feel Mommy and Daddy are just there, “I can cry just a little and they come immediately.” They should have this feeling of intimacy and proximity.

They may have a room of their own when they desire. By five or six they may gain some desire in this direction, by eight, nine years old they will be certainly ready. They can have their room but they may want to sleep near to the parent. And if the child is coming in the bed, if the child wants to sleep on a cot next to the parents or in the bed, all right, there is no harm in this, and in many cultures it is promoted and you will find that in those cultures where the child is treated with this type of physical security, the child is more emotionally balanced.

So if the unconditional love is given to the child, sadhana is done and there is physical contact so that they don’t feel they are helpless in the crib, that they are left alone in the room and even when they cry, no one comes, what are they to do? They will think, ”Oh, I am so worried, how will I survive, I’m just helpless here all alone, no one is coming.” It will create a deep fear in their hearts. It is not healthy. The child who every time they cry, mommy is there, daddy is there and they know every time they reach out there is mommy, daddy right there, then they feel safe until they are bigger and can get out of the crib by themselves. Then they can go get mommy and daddy of come to their room on their own. They can do this for themselves and then they will not have to worry. Like this it makes a difference. The young child has come from the womb and they are still helpless. When they are coming into the world, the human child is not like some creatures that can do for themselves, they are still quite helpless, so they need to be cared for as if they are just partially in the womb. Give them physical contact, the unconditional love.

But when they grow little older, it is different. When they get to be able to manage themselves a little more space can be there, little more space, but not imposed, it is according to their needs. So you bring the child and you give them a pretty room of their own and they are very excited and all their toys are there, all right. But if in the night they may wake up and they want to come to be with mommy and daddy, all right. You don’t say, “Oh bad child, why are you not in your own room?” So in this way the unconditional love again is there, the physical proximity is there and no condemnation, just love. And when their behavior is naughty, just laugh it off and ignore it. So if the child falls on the floor and flays the arms and legs and screams and yells, mommy goes: “Oh, tsk, tsk, come when you are ready,” and just leaves them alone and laughs it off. And when they come and are sweet, then she goes, “Oh sweet child,” nothing even needs to be said, you should not lecture the child. They do not have the mental capacity to withstand the lecture. They will not even know what you are talking about.

Q. It is especially embarrassing if the child gets a tantrum in the shop.

Yes, if it is in the shop you just smile and laugh about it, but do not take any negative tone to the child. Pick them up and take them out. What happens often is that the parents are so busy worrying about what the others think that they will get upset and angry with the child because the child has embarrassed them. But the child does not know any better. And then when the child feels, “ Oh, I have really upset mommy and daddy,” then what will they do? They will feel some power in that temper tantrum in the store and they will do more. So better you just go, “Oh silly child, come with me, I will take you to the car right now because you are not acting fitting for a store. If you will be in the store you will have to be nice.” And just bring to the car and let them cry and scream in the car. Don’t bother with them at all, just take them home. But there is no condemnation of the child that is the point. It is considered they are just being children and there is no condemnation. So before the age of five no condemnation should be there.

Q. Can you give some hints when the child is over five years?

Over five years of age they can begin to learn Brahma sadhana if they are so inclined though they should not be forced to sit because then they will get reaction in the mind. So you want to inspire them to sit and give them special treat each time they sit but you don’t want to force them or make them uncomfortable. If the child is very active they may find it very hard to sit. If the child is calmer in temperament then it may be different. If the child is of Asian descent maybe it will be a little easier for them to sit. But if they get too restless, they don’t have to sit. Even if they are playing in the room where you are doing sadhana or they are sitting in the bed where they are going to sleep while you are doing sadhana, again up to ten years old this is very good approach. Again for the child even from five to ten if they have the night fears or the night waking and they may want to come to bed with the parents, they should not be condemned. They should be given unconditional love. But the age of reason is growing more by five and they can begin to comprehend good from bad. So if they do some ill act, little mean, even five to six years old they can be mean to one another, then they should be given a little punishment, such as, if they are playing together with their friends and they do mean acts to the friend, rather than just laughing, “Oh silly child, they don’t know any better,” no, at this age you take the discipline and you say, “You cannot pull the hair of your friend, this is not proper behavior, come, you will have to sit in the corner, until you can be proper and then you go and apologize your friend and then you can play again with your friend.”

So this approach of discipline begins about the five years age. Still between 5-7 you don’t give too much explaining, the rea­soning is not there, but you just little explain. “ No, that is not nice! You go sit here until you can calm yourself and be nice, then you go apologize.” You give them instruction like this, you see, it is in­structional, but again, you don’t get angry with the child, you don’t make them to feel guilty: “What is wrong with you, you are pulling the hair, you bad child, you are a bad person, why you pulling the hair of your friend, what is wrong, go over in the corner”, not like this. No, no insinuation of that they are not a nice person. No guilt trip, rather it should be: “No, you cannot do this, this is not proper behaviour, you go in the corner until you have calmed yourself and you can act proper with your friend and then you apologize.” There is no guilt in that but instruction. So the discipline should be given as simple instruction devoid of anger, reproach and guilt.

Q. Can you say something for the mothers in Finland are a little bit lonely, alone with the child.

Mothers are very lonely. In Finland there is a national problem of this loneliness. The people of Finland in the early days lived in the conclave, in the extended house and now they tend to live alone, don’t they. In dark times with the long winters it is not healthy. I’m sorry to say it has become a custom due to affluence of the modern world. That is not healthy for the people. So due to cultural samskara the people suffer. In the warm climate it can be done more because you will just go out in the morning into the street where you will see the friends, you go to the market and so on. But in the cold climate it is not good, it is long and dark. And when the person is alone in the long and dark, it is too much loneliness. It is the nature of the human being to be social. They are like the herd creatures. When it is dark and night, they want to gather in the group together. It is instinctual and for safety. So when the culture imposes an approach that goes against the biological instinct, it creates clash and people suffer. You look at the history, thousands upon thousands of years, you look at the cultures around the world, and people have lived in groups together. They have lived in their colonies. If they go into the forest and build their huts, they will build them all together, they won’t build one hut and then one mile away another hut. Maybe some unusual people will do that but most people will come together. This is the nature of human beings.

When the mother is alone with the child, she must find some social groupings. It is the same in this country. Too many mothers are isolated these days, not enough respect for the mother, is no grandmother in the house, no aunt in the house, no one to take care of the children. They don’t get a break to rest. When they have their menses they do not get the rest they require. In the olden days the grandmother and the aunts would take charge of the children when it was the woman’s time of month and she would get some rest. This is another problem. The woman is expected to be a man, to go all month long without even acknowledging that she has her time and she needs a little rest. It is not proper, but again it is cultural imposition. So what to do in an unnatural situation to make the people as comfortable as possible? You can alert them to the biological tendencies. There is a science that can be referred to, look up some articles and you will see biopsychology, development from ancient times where people have studied the patterns of people throughout history. It is anthropology. Actually it is a form of psychology. The history comes from anthropology. They study history to see the psychological tendencies. If you look back 40,000 years to see how people lived, you will see the biology of people. You can even get some scientific data from the library or the computer on this point that may be very convincing to people. One approach that is a good service is to make people aware so that they can consider their lifestyles and the impact of their lifestyles upon their happiness. This is one point, because otherwise you are trying to put an band-aid on something. People are trying to deny their natural biological tendencies because it is not popular to think that you feel that way so there is too much denial. But the fact of the matter is that the feelings are there. Then the next thing they are doing is going to the psychiatrist and saying, “Can I please have some antidepressants?” They are taking antidepressants trying to compensate for the fact what their whole physiology, their whole intuition, their whole biology is telling them they should have something a certain way and it is a different way and they are not supposed to feel the way that they feel. The contradiction is too great. It is not at all their fault. It is the illness of the society that denies people. The society loses its prama, its balance when there is discrepancy between the fundamental nature of the human beings and the human needs, and the way the society expects the people to be.

It is not only in Finland, it is the West, its affluence and the decadence of capitalism of the vaeshyan era as it ends that have brought about this type of disease around the world in affluent countries.

But to the individual mother, frankly, how can I just talk about the mother being lonely with her child? There is a cause for this and it is larger than her own situation. But since she is alone with her child, she should recognize and approve of her own instincts, the desire to have the aunt, the uncle, her mother, the community to help her raise the children. Then she must do what she can to find ways to come together with others to fulfil what she can of her instinctual needs. She may join mother’s groups, kindergarten groups, mother’s support groups and even to create them if they don’t exist because certainly she is not the only mother with the problem. She can try to meet the neighbors, try her best to form the type of support that biology is calling for, and most important not to condemn herself for having these needs. Realize it is not that something is wrong with her or that she needs an antidepressant. Perhaps she needs an antidepressant, because it is all too much, but it is not that something is wrong with her. She has natural feelings. Something is wrong with the society that it has not provided a proper environment for her to have these needs met. If she recognizes this, it will help her. So many women, thousands upon thousands, are alone and lonely raising their children like this and they have no one to turn to. The husband says, “What’s wrong with you?” But he is at work all day with his friends in the business. The wife thinks, “Oh, something is wrong with me, I am not as I should be, only if I were a little stronger person, but I have some neurotic needs.” It is not a neurotic need. People have for thousands of years lived in their social groups, in family groups, in clans, in their family, in their tribe. It is not the nature of human beings to be alone in this way, and on top of it, it is survival. Even in the affluent world it is survival. The woman needs her time of rest and no acknowledgement is given. She is to be like a man, like an automaton, all month long to act the same. These are the issues that concern family life and women. So many women have been made to think they have mental problems. That is part of the oppression of the women of this stage of development. Yes, oppression, because they are made to think they have mental problems when society is not providing proper environment for them.