Allow Children, And Do Not Stop Them

Jesus took children seriously (Matthew 19: 13-15). The stories that he must have heard about the massacre of children by Herod when he was born must have left a deep sorrow in him; all Jesus’ would-be friends that were of his age were killed. He realised how cheaply authorities measured and valued vulnerable children, when they become an inconvenience to their power and success.

Jesus considered children as Christian models of existence, and spoke of it as a prerequisite for one’s salvation. There could be many qualities in a child, which makes one fit to receive salvation, like, empty, humble, and thus able to receive unconditionally, remember the rich fool (Luke 12: 13021) and the rich man who wanted to follow Jesus (Matthew 19: 16-30) — the wisdom and providence of God had no place in them; honest, open, and has no hidden agendas and hypocrisy, we see people maliciously making plans to trap Jesus with questions (Matthew 22: 15-17). Positively speaking, there was a saint in the Christian tradition who was called a child—St. Therese of Lisieux, known as Therese of Child Jesus, or simply, the little flower, because every ordinary work that was given to her, she did with extraordinary love, enthusiasm, commitment, and with the single minded focus and obedience of a child. Children are empty, genuine, and full of enthusiasm.

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One phrase I cannot bypass from this passage is, ‘do not stop them’. We adults stop children from what they spontaneously do, be it singing loudly, running around, drawing on walls, or even asking a question or answering a question to an adult, not really because of what they are doing, but because it is inconvenient and at times embarrassing to us adults. In education, enabling could be a pedagogy style. It is allowing children to do many and all things along with their academics. Let them sing, dance, play sports, write, create, etc. so that they can discover what they are good at, for they as children not yet not know what they are good at. Not stopping them will enable them in their becoming.

The phrase, ‘do not stop children’ gets a radical perspective when we add another word with it—do not stop 'girl' children. I tend to think, understanding the kind of patriarchy that existed around Jesus, seeing the zeal in which the male disciples of Jesus were trying to stop them, that these were girl children. Jesus makes a point to men of all ages, ‘do not stop girl children’. Girls often are stopped from undertaking big tasks, even education, saying that they are girls; they are stopped from speaking out, saying that they are girls; they are stopped from taking on a journey, saying that they are girls; they are stopped from going out to attend the village festival late evening, saying that they are girls.

Every child, as said of Jesus, must “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and love of man” (Luke 2: 52). Allowing children to be children is in fact allowing them to grow up authentically. Enable children to be more; and the greatest enabling is allowing them freely to go to Jesus and meet Him.

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