When we talk with children about things that matter we are also dealing with our own childhood. We look back to injustices we experienced -- the times when we told the truth and it was not believed, the times we were blamed and were not responsible, the many occasions on which we were humiliated and resolved never to inflict this upon anyone else. We remember the positive experiences, too -- being free to explore in the countryside or play hopscotch and ball games in the street, for example, belonging to a close-knit extended family and celebrating family festivals with aunts, uncles and grandparents -- and we feel sad that we can offer these things to our children only as our own treasured memories. We sift through the values we learned, or those we felt were inflicted upon us, as children, reinterpreting them in terms of our adult priorities and changing world.
The speed of change -- new technology, new diseases, new threats and new opportunities -- must make us reflect carefully on everything we are trying to teach our children. For one thing is sure: they will not inhabit a society identical to that into which we were born, and by the time they are into their twenties or thirties, it may have changed beyond recognition. They will need the flexibility, courage and the strong personal values both to see and to adapt to new challenges, and to strive with others to find solutions to environmental and human problems that may appear overwhelming.
By Sheila Kitzinger and Celia Kitzinger
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