Angita was sixteen years old when she perceived that God was calling her to be a nun. She has secretly been receiving formation from the convent because of the vehement opposition of her parents (especially her mother’s) to her calling and dream of becoming a nun. She loved children and often said, she will like to end up teaching and forming young people. This dream was thwarted due to incessant pressure from her mother. Her mother frequently tells her, sometimes with a threat, that she will die if she (Angita) ‘abandons’ her for the convent and reminding her of her role as the first daughter of the family. Angita eventually left the convent and now is married (to satisfy her mother, who has since died few years after Angita got married). Currently she is living in bitterness and is not happy in her married life despite marrying a rich man and having five children. She told me recently that she always feels something is missing in her life even though she tries to be a good and loving mom and wife.
Does this kind of story sound familiar to you? I have known children who hate going to school. And their parents will almost kill them for hating formal schooling, instead of finding out what is going on in that child’s mind. Would not vocational training have supplanted his quest for class room education? Every child is different and for the fact that your neighbour’s child is going to the university this year does not mean yours will go this year even though both graduated from high school the same year. Are they in competition? Everyone has to follow one’s path at God’s pace.
I know a lot of children who hate mathematics and their parents will be having high blood pressure. What impact would be knowing algebra and factorization have in your child’s future life if he/she is configured differently? Parents need to address the need of every child differently and seek counsel and discernment as at when necessary. Sometime ago one of my sons mentioned to me that he wants to be a musician and often spend half of his time writing music and recording them. It is getting him distracted even in his studies and I have to act. I called him to my room and sat him down. I asked him. What do you really want to do in your life.
He said he wanted to be a musician. A musician? I retorted. What kind of music do you want to play or compose? and he said contemporary rap music. And I asked him: Why do you want to go into the music industry? What is your motivation? From my discussion, I discovered that he has no clear idea or reason why he wanted to be a musician. I reminded him that being a musician is a calling, and that I do not have any opposition to that but that first he has to complete his formal education, and that he must not just follow the idea of his friends or celebrities he sees sometimes on the television; so many of them live fake and pressured lives.
I even followed him to a music studio one day where one of the studio managers (who trained as an engineer but now combines this with a hobby as media and music consultant) even advised him to pay attention to his education and graduate first. Since after that encounter and my periodic follow up discussion, there has been some serenity around him and is now more focused.
The essence of these stories is that most times how parents handle the career path of their children can build or rent their lives. I know many parents who harshly insist that their children must be a lawyer, a medical doctor, an Engineer even when their children vehemently oppose these path of calling. One man told me, sometime ago, that he wanted one of his children to study law because of the recurring land dispute in his village. I have a friend who graduated from a medical school as a dentist and a year after his house service entered into the seminary and has since become a catholic priest. He often tells me that he should have been miserable as a dentist. The path to divine call is often a mystery.
As parents we do not own our children. God made them and gave them to our family on loan, to guide them and help them realise their purpose and destiny in life according to God’s plan. Some parents have practically forced their children to early marriages either because they are the only child and they are in a hurry to see their grandchildren before they die. How foolish this sounds in real terms? What about the happiness of the child? What about children who never know or have seen their own parents and today are living happy and fulfilled lives?
