Parents procreate their child without any certainty as to what they
have wrought. That the child’s existence is contingent upon their
creative action is undeniable. That their child’s identity is to some
extent contingent on their parenting, their formative love, is likewise
obvious. However, the child is also radically free. He surprises his
parents. He is not a combination of them — he is his own world. His
parents have created a mystery that moves itself, a self-determined
creature, a being with a locus of freedom apart from even the strongest
parenting. As such, the child appears as a synthesis of freedom and
necessity, of that which is determined and that which is
self-determined.
Parenting is an art, and I mean this as a fact, not as a compliment.
Parenting creates the child, but it is simultaneously an act of humility
towards the child, an act of formation that nevertheless recognizes the
mystery of the child, the fact that the child — though utterly
dependent on you for existence — is simultaneously self-determined.
Children are works of art, for precisely the same reason that children
are surprising. It is the joy of the parent to see his child acting in
freedom, “coming into his own,” exceeding expectations — in short, as
the work of art delights the artist by expressing its strange freedom,
so the child delights his parent by expressing the same.
-Marc Barnes at Bad Catholic
8/14/2013
I'll take it as a compliment
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