Article June 8, 2015 Issue

What we owe to our children

Keitha Walker

When my first grandchild was three months old, I had the pleasure of taking care of him for about ten days. I had forgotten what it was like to be immersed in caring for such a pure and precious child, whom I knew to be truly an idea of God. It really was exalting. I found I didn’t want to have a thought, word, or action that wasn’t worthy of coming into his experience.

For example, when I gave Mikayel a bottle during the evening news, it wasn’t long before I turned off the TV. It was just too difficult to feed him and edit out reports of violence and all those commercials depicting disease and drugs. Not knowing how much he was capable of taking in, I decided that TV could wait until he had some tools with which to defend himself.

Once, while carrying Mikayel, I raised my voice at one of the dogs to get him to stop doing something. That made the baby cry. It helped me realize we don’t come into this world conditioned to startling words or loud noises. It helped me to question why I thought there weren’t alternatives to such jarring actions.

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