The Second Biggest Capital Granted to Man

Morality starts in the bosom of the mother; every utterance is a brick placed in the child’s character.

(Nam?k Kemal)

The life story of a baby starts in the body of the mother in its third week. Its body as well as emotions grows in the mother’s womb. It hides its gender from the parents though it is certain on the first day. Its behavior and movements vary according to what the mother eats and drinks. It is a scientific fact that it can perceive sounds in the external world after week 20, and it sometimes can react not only to what the mother does but also to what’s happening around the mother and to what its loving father may say. During this process when the mother deals with tons of health problems, the father goes through a military regiment like a constant aide to the mother. The father feels the sweet nervousness at times of wondering what his spouse will crave for. Sometimes the craving turns out to be something at hand, while at other times it needs to be brought from thousands of miles away. Sweet moments are sometimes lived at the hospital line waiting for the doctor, at other times in the ultrasound room listening to the baby’s heartbeats. Blood tests, triple and quad tests are accompanied by the parents’ prayers to God so that our baby becomes healthy. The due date nears this way or that way and it is now the mother’s turn to worry about where and when the delivery will take place, every moment of which she experiences in all sorts of stress. Finally the delivery occurs; the guest has arrived. Despite the mother’s crying for everyone to see, the father cries out of happiness in a corner. The first days and the first weeks are spent on practicing how to handle the baby without hurting it. All babies say hello to life with only such reflexes as sucking, crying and swallowing. In the first few months, the mother wakes the baby every two hours because it must be hungry; in the following weeks, the baby starts the adventure of waking the mother several times every night. After many sleepless nights, days of running after it room in and room out, messed-up things being picked, and torn notebooks glued together, the baby turns one. As you count the years, you realize that she’s grown and can do many things without your help. The story so far is of what virtually every parent experiences. The true revealer of real parents is the emotional and physical attitude they assume while all these are experienced.

Like love for one’s child, love for one’s parents stems primarily from blood ties, from first degree relation. What separates the child from the parents is generally the belief that a child is loved more than a parent, which is the case in many societies. In fact, what makes us love a child more than our parents is the fact that we make great effort and then we have a sense of responsibility for the child. Otherwise, nobody can be dearer to man than his parents because it is his parents who bring him into existence and help him maintain his life. Yet it seems that man loves his children more than he does his parents, who have gone into so much trouble for him. We can easily see people who have lost a parent or both parents when we look around. And we don’t get much moved by this information; our empathy does not go much beyond paying condolences or wishing the deceased a spot in heaven. It is not the same with a child, whose loss is incomparably sorrowful, the very idea of which is unthinkable and unbearable for the parents. You must have seen or heard about parents who have lost a child and you must not have dared put yourself in their shoes. One’s child is this important and equally difficult is its loss or death. But what makes a child valuable to us is not the fact that it is made of our own blood. What makes a child valuable is the fact that we find in the child our dreams, our sense of responsibility for its needs and most importantly the pains we have taken for it. In fact, a child gains value and becomes valuable to the extent of the pains taken not only by the parents but also by the entire society. These pains are surely valuable not to the extent of the child’s worldly status or property but to that of the contribution he or she makes to humanity.

A child is the greatest capital granted to man, only second to one’s own life. As our Prophet says in a hadith, “A child is one of the blessings of paradise.” A child is no different from a fertile land in the hands of a skillful farmer. Just as soil won’t produce yield by simply sowing, plowing, and irrigating, a child won’t be ready for life by just being fed and clothed. Deciding on a crop without knowing the type of soil, without considering the climate, without bringing together many components such as irrigation possibilities, pesticides and fertilizer would be utter disregard for the laws of physics and a waste of potential. Similarly, every item or value endeavored to be taught to the child without knowing the child’s character and the socio-cultural makeup of society and without considering means of nutrition for the child is wasting a person. In short, it’s much like trying to grow tea in Urfa.

It is an undeniable fact that the future is fraught with problems unless equally profound thought is given for the psychological and spiritual world of the child in a society where every attention is paid for where the child will be delivered and by which doctor, what brand the baby stroller will be, which store the stroller or clothes will be bought from, or which knick-knacks will be displayed at child parties.

A corrupt public official, an officer who shows favoritism, a building contractor who steals from material, a doctor who thinks more about the money he’ll get than the patient’s health, a teacher who doesn’t go to class on time and steals students’ right to class, an unfair judge, a trader who sells a faulty product, or a parent whose sole interest is brands, vanity and gossip has no value to give to a child other than shame. It will be no different a situation than that of a man who tries to bring up a child with an undeserved income or gain and builds a house on someone else’s land. “Don’t try to teach manners to your children since they will look like you anyway. Teach manners to yourself and it will do,” says üstün D?kmen, psychology professor in Ankara University Faculty of Educational Sciences and writer of numerous books in the field. A value tried to be given in this manner will not be different from the result a mechanic will get spending all his time painting and polishing a car without an engine.

The most valuable thing a child deserves is a happy family and parents who respect each other though they may be separated. Unhappy individuals who are disrespectful toward each other cannot generally be expected to be good parents. A child who always sees an unpeaceful environment around contradicts whatever the parents say and may want to walk a different path at all times in order to teach them a lesson and to inadvertently give back the unhappiness presented to him. Therefore, we shouldn’t lay waste to our children who are granted to us as capital.

I would like to end my essay with a story containing several messages that will make the topic clearer.

The moment the father sits down after getting from work, his little son jumps on his lap and asks, “Dad, take me to the park.” Exhausted, the man says, “Sunday, I promise.” Excited to hear this offer, the boy looks forward to Sunday. And Sunday comes. While father is reading the paper in his chair, his son comes running over and asks, “Dad, are we going to the park?” Not wanting to be disturbed, father finds an excuse. He notices a picture of the world in the newspaper he’s reading. He tears the picture and rips it into forty pieces. He gives them to the boy and says, “If you put this map together, we’ll go right way,” thinking he won’t be able to do it anyway. The boy takes the pieces and leaves the living room. Father sits back comfortably in his chair but to his amazement the boy comes back soon and says, “I’ve finished daddy. Stunned, father asks, “How did you get it done so quickly?” The boy gives an instructive reply: “On the back of the world was a picture of a person. Once I put the person together, the world was straightened out.

This essay is dedicated to parents who are forced to be separated from their children and to my son who has turned one today.

Film suggestion for parents: “Hush! Girls Don’t Scream”