The Greatest Value!

Raising three children is a handful. Add to that a mother’s keen desire to contribute to the future of our country a breed of productive, compassionate and respectful citizens, the pressure becomes intense. That objective nowadays is even harder to meet due to the lack of time, as households run on a very tight schedule. In most cases both parents work, which makes the time left to spend with the children short and often filled with orders.
The pace is also fast in homes where the mother is not working outside the house, as even the normal day-to-day tasks have become extremely demanding. Kids today don’t have much time either, most have a longer commute to and from school than we parents had to deal with as children. They may also be involved in many after school practices and activities that were not so readily available when we were young. Add to that the lure of the Internet and extended school projects that eat away our children’s free time. All these factors contribute to much busier homes than the ones we grew up in. The question then becomes: how do we ensure the proper raising of our children in light of all this pressure?
Two scenarios are often the outcome of this fast-paced trend. The first scenario is when the parents (usually the mother) tries to compress all the discipline in the few short hours left and hence ends up spending most of her time negotiating or quarreling with the kids, which often leads to “yelling-mode” (a mode in which the mother turns into the villain whose sole objective seems to be giving the kids a hard time). How many of you moms have used all of the following phrases in less than one hour – change your clothes, tidy up your room, brush your hair, do your homework, help your sister, turn off the TV. Of course the reality is that the mother is trying hard to squeeze in too much raising in too little time. The other scenario is one in which parents are too tired to actively engage in the little details of raising their kids, so they either leave the task to domestic help or simply enlist every possible mean to keep their kids busy and away from them. In those types of homes, TV watching has no limit, Play Station and other computer games play the leading role in the child’s day, and when all else fails the child is sent to play at a friend’s house or simply to his room. Obviously, both of the scenarios above are far from ideal.
With such busy lives, I believe that parents should actively determine the most important values they want their child to possess as a grown-up. In other words, prioritize. Choose the most important trait and focus intently on achieving that. Of course that doesn’t mean we forget all the other traits, just don’t put equal weight on everything so you can ensure success, sanity, and a healthy relationship with the kids during those soon-to-be-over years. I have given this issue a lot of thought and spent a long time thinking about adjectives that might appear on most parents’ wish-list, for example: smart, hard-working, respectful, organized, ambitious, religious, courageous, artistic, athletic, committed, humble, proud, kind, etc… The list could go on and on. After much thought I have come to the conclusion that the most important adjective I would like my girls to possess as grown-ups is COMPASSION. Allow me to explain why.
Compassion is not limited to feeling another person’s pain; it is much greater than that. It is putting oneself in another person’s position and actively trying to experience how they feel at good, bad, and normal times alike. All you have to do is constantly remind your child to think how the other person would feel in a given situation and then ask your child to act according to that notion. People who have compassion cannot accept unfairness because they realize how damaging it can be to the other side. Once a child categorically rejects unfairness they are on an unequivocal road to righteousness. A truly compassionate child will automatically resent unfairness in all its forms, therefore they will not cheat on a test or at any other time in their future. They will not pick on another child or join others as they tease someone because they know how horrible that person will feel. A child with compassion will not find pleasure in showing off or boasting their riches if wealthy, but will act humbly because they know that others are not as fortunate. Compassion breeds kindness of the heart and wisdom of the soul. A compassionate person will not inflict harm (neither verbally nor physically), but rather will strive to alleviate pain. A person with compassion will be punctual because they respect others enough to do so. And obviously a person with compassion will be honest because that is how they expect others to be as well, as that is the only path to achieve fairness.
Compassion also goes beyond inter-personal relationships. I hope that one day my children will be compassionate towards our country. When Egypt is suffering they will feel for it and try to make a change, even at their own small level by setting a good example for others around them. Above all, compassion will allow our children to be emotional, to have the strength to express love, and appreciate being loved. And I mean love in its grandest form – love for all God’s creation.
Therefore, I label compassion as the “Supreme Value” because it encompasses so much goodness: honesty, kindness, respect, pride, fairness, courage, humbleness, and helpfulness are but a few. Think about it, are these not the core values of religion as well? So there you have it, one trait that is almost all encompassing!