It's exactly what children are NOT!
And I take this very seriously!
Nearly 28 years of experience working with children in the media and the National Children's Song Festival have exposed me to many, many situations. I'm telling you one of them now:
Somewhere in the midst of rehearsals for the final night of the festival, the parents of the participating children are in heated discussions, sometimes completely inexplicable (considering that it's a song festival, so the competition is with the creators)... and backstage, two little girls, soloists from Korça, 5 and 6 years old.
I heard the eldest one say to the five-year-old:
— It's better to take third place, because three is greater than one. I know better than you, because I'm in school.
I don't know how much I loved those girls in that moment, like every child I've had the good fortune to meet up close on that magical stage for almost a quarter of a century, in fact.
All they are and say is a loud bell that "rings" louder and louder every day.
We adults, especially their parents, are often wrong.
What we didn't achieve on our own, what we built, we definitely want to inherit; our dreams, our passions, our fears... we throw at our children's heads every day.
I'm the first to say that I support every child's inclination, but dear parents... we are putting too much pressure on our children.
We must be very careful to stay close to them and encourage them for the best, but be careful, for their best, not ours.
When my little girl does something I don't like or need to explain, I often call her "little person." With this, I want to get her attention, but above all, to remind myself that she is a person, with her own ideas, character, abilities, talents, and desires.
I have to stand by it, but not see it as an extension of me. And modestly, that's the essence of what I wanted to express today.
Kahlil Gibran said it much more beautifully than I did in this poem, which, not coincidentally, I also included in the festival script years ago and which I am leaving for you to read below...
SONS (Kahlil Gibran)
Your children are not your sons,
They are sons and daughters of life's thirst for itself.
They come through you, but not from you,
Even though they live with you, they do not belong to you.
You can give them love, but not your thoughts:
They have their own opinions.
You can shelter their bodies, but not their souls:
They live in the house of tomorrow,
Which you will not be allowed to visit even in your dreams.
You can try to be like them, but not make them like you:
Life moves on and doesn't lag behind the past.
You are the bows, from which the sons, like living arrows, are shot forth.
The archer sees the target on the endless horizon,
And he strains you with force, until his arrows go fast and far.
Trust with joy in the hand of the archer,
For, as he loves the flight of the arrow, so he loves the strenght of the bow.
