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"Breaking free of the idea that we are all just here to accumulate products has everything to do with revolutionizing oneself, honoring your soul and singing the truth as you know it to the world." - Me'Shell N'degeocello

WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?

In the March 1995 issue of Child Care Information Exchange, Australia's Anne Stonehouse commented on "love of children as a factor in selecting teachers of young children:

"Enjoyment of and pleasure in the behavior and development of young children are critical ingredients in being able to work effectively with them.  Indeed, almost all applicants for positions working with children will find the occasion to say at some point in the interview, 'I just love children.'  However, it is worth looking more closely at what people mean when they say that, and to reflect on whether or not it is appropriate.

"If you think about it, 'love' is a funny word to use.  Love involves a complex set of behaviors and feelings, and is directed to specific people.  We would hope that people, when they say they 'love children,' really mean that they enjoy working with them.  Bruno Bettelheim wrote that 'love is not enough.'  When it comes to attributes of people who work with children, I would go further and say 'love is not appropriate.'  How would we feel about a surgeon who asserts that she 'just loves cutting people open!'?

"Sometimes, unfortunately, when people say that they love children, there is evidence that they actually mean something else.  Sometimes they mean 'I enjoy having power over people smaller, weaker, more vulnerable than I am.'  These are people who like younger children better than older ones, and who will often say that they like babies because they are so dependent.  Red flag!

"Think seriously about someone who likes children for their weaknesses rather than their strengths, who may be lacking power in other arenas in their lives, and who may seek a situation where it is clear they can have control.  These people may have difficulty with toddlers' assertiveness, with negotiating and arriving at face saving compromises, with letting children initiate and have some control over their own experience.

"Sometimes they mean 'I need people to need me, to love me.'  These are people who look to their jobs to have their own personal needs met, and they may see children in early childhood programs as a kind of captive audience.  They may have difficulty with children who reject them, children who defy them, children who are independent and assertive.

"Okay, you may be saying, don't push the point too far.  When people say they love children, what they really mean most of the time is that they enjoy them, they derive pleasure from being with them, helping them, and watching them grow.  Surely there's nothing wrong with that, is there?

"My answer to that question is 'maybe, maybe not.'  It depends on what it is that gives pleasure and enjoyment.  It depends on the presence or absence of elements of smug amusement, a patronizing superior stance, in what gives adults pleasure in young children.  It depends on whether you laugh at them (even when they don't hear you or see you) more than you laugh with them.

"It depends ultimately on the presence of that critical element, to quote Aretha Franklin, R-E-S-P-E-C-T.  Respect involves recognition of their struggles, their persistence, their willingness to take a risk, recognition that in their most fundamental being, in terms of their humanness, they are more like us than they are different to us."

To capture the complete article by Stonehouse, and to checkout other Anne Stonehouse articles for Exchange, go to http://mail.ccie.com/go/eed/0047

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