Childhoods of our time

With their youth being cruelly curtailed by the rampant materialism of the modern world, children have a lot to learn very quickly and we have to make time to help. By showing solidarity with their plight, we might learn from them too

There is no doubt that these are difficult times to be young. Young people, at least in the more prosperous regions of the world, have seemingly endless opportunities open to them nowadays. With these opportunities come new challenges, problems and threats. These challenges vary, of course, with social, economic, ethnic, religious and other circumstances. In many cases these daily struggles will be more acute than many of us here could ever imagine.

We hear a great deal about the protection our young people require; about moral relativism; about loss of faith; and about the growing uncertainty of a postmodern world balanced between growing religious fundamentalism on the one hand, and rampant materialism on the other. So what might it mean to be in solidarity with young people?

Young people, by definition, are relatively inexperienced and immature. They have a lot to learn. Nevertheless they have a lot to teach us, if we have the patience and humility to listen to them, before speaking and advising.

I would go further and claim that, if treated with respect and nurtured in a loving environment, young people have the power to help us rediscover our own idealism, energy, generosity of spirit and natural compassion for the suffering and the dispossessed.

Jesus was forthright on this point. In Chapter 10 of Mark?s gospel he proclaims: ?Suffer the little children to come unto me.? Later Jesus is more challenging with their older siblings, instructing the rich young man to ??sell what you own and give the money to the poor?. So the Church must both nurture the young and also challenge them.

To stand in solidarity with young people, the Church must do more than prescribe a list of rules by which a life in Christ is best lived. The Church must encourage our young people to listen to their own consciences and to look with a clear and informed eye at the scientific and social reality in which they live. The Second Vatican Council in its Declaration on Religious Freedom in 1965 unequi-vocally asserts the Catholic?s duty to abide by her conscience. As was said in Gaudium et Spes: ?In a wonderful manner conscience reveals that law which is fulfilled by love of God and neighbour. In fidelity to conscience, Christians are joined with the rest of men in the search for truth, and for the genuine solution to the numerous problems which arise in the life of individuals from social relationships. Hence the more right conscience holds sway, the more persons and groups turn aside from blind choice and strive to be guided by the objective norms of morality.?

So we are talking about a relationship. This relationship is reciprocal. Our solidarity with them is their solidarity with us. Our respect for them is a reflection of their respect for us. Our love for them is mirrored by their love for us. This is a two-way street with rights and responsibilities, gifts offered and received, on both sides.

Our children are forced to grow up so quickly. Their youth is cruelly curtailed by having to take on, in those countries suffering dreadfully from drought or disease, the responsibilities of adults ? or in richer countries by being pressurised to adopt the preoccupations and problems of older people but without the support they deserve. For, especially in the West, it is us, the adult population, who are vanishing into full-time, all-consuming jobs or selfish pursuits of limited value to us or our families.

So reform must begin here with us, not there with them. Being a parent is not an easy job. From my own experience, it is a job you never master. But it is absolutely vital not just for the health of our children but for the health of our society and world.

We need to emphasise the calling of parenthood, of responsible adulthood, of the caring and nurturing, of time ?spent with?, which is the bedrock of every life-giving family and community, both sacred and secular. We must also understand that our children are having to grapple with increasingly difficult moral challenges around the meaning of life, death and the preservation not just of health but even of youth and cosmetic appearance. And I am not sure we can always put our hands on our hearts and say, collectively, that we have helped them a great deal in even beginning to resolve such dilemmas. I speak with some passion, and a deepening sense of concern, not only as a Catholic and a mother of four children but also as a human rights lawyer grappling with the complexities of a morally conflicted, and increasingly secular, world.

The first thing we need to be clear about is to give young people the respect, but above all the time and support, they need as they struggle with the moral and practical challenges of modern life.

For we must find time in our increasingly busy days for conversations to take place. It must be carved out, saved from our busy existence and invested in our children. The conversation must be serious, and genuinely two-way. It must be open, allowing the other to disagree. It is a relationship of mutual respect aiming at understanding, sustained not by certainty and dogmatic assertion, but by love and listening.

Yes, mistakes will be made ? by us parents as well as children. But, as the parable of the prodigal son makes abundantly clear, where there is loving forgiveness and acceptance of failure, there is renewal and a return to life.

It may not always be easy. It can, at times, be painful. But turbulence is not just a description of the times in which we live. It is a description of the maturing process which everyone, but especially the young, must learn to negotiate. They are especially vulnerable but we should not treat them as victims. Mistakes are the way not only to learn, but also to mature. They are the gateway through which we pass to new life. Our role must be to accompany our young on that journey with acceptance and love.

Again this demands of us that precious gift of time. To accompany is to spend time with. Not like the older brother in the story of the prodigal son, who stood to one side and carped that, because he hadn?t made that particular error of judgement, why should he ? and why should his father ? spend time with the sinner? Never a better or more important time to be alongside, in solidarity, than when things have gone wrong.

Recently I have had professional experience of solidarity in action. Kids Company is an organisation ? now based in the London Borough of Lambeth ? which was founded in response to the growing number of children who live in an environment lacking the nurturing essentials: a stable home life, love, and understanding. Kids Company helps the sort of kids who, if it were situated in Rio rather than London, would be called street children. Trained workers and volunteers provide everything from numeracy and literacy to therapeutic work and one-to-one counselling for seriously disturbed children who self-refer themselves to the scheme. Kids Company also works in 23 schools in London providing counselling and psychotherapy services for vulnerable children who have poor social and communication skills or low self-esteem.

The most striking thing for me about this organisation was not only the dedication of the staff and the vibrancy of the kids they were working with, but also the fact that, unlike most services, almost all of the kids at Kids Company self-refer. When we hear time and time again that the problem with some of the most disruptive young people is that they won?t engage with services, is there something all of us, including the Church, could learn from this model? Something about providing a safe environment in which kids feel accepted, not judged? And where they can explore both their sense of inadequacy, conflict and giftedness?