Power of Choice

As questionable as any abstract policy, agency, cultural concept, or limitation is, it can be rendered limp with just the choices, the words and actions, of human beings. Individuals--be them adults or children, social workers, teachers, parents, legal guardians, child care workers, independent agents--each and everyone, has the power to overcome the limitations of what society has established collectively. Human passion transcends bureaucratic disenfranchisement, because it existed before it and will continue to exist, it prevails where the system fails.

It is the difference between the life and passion of the warm heart and the paycheck for the cold heart. One has the power to help the world, the other to watch it crumble and run. It's the difference between the active and the passive soul working in a dehumanizing system, the stiff professional downpresser and the warm personal caregiver, the cog and the human--and all it takes to propagate is a loving, caring, and reasonable perspective. When that personal perspective is on the table, one can truly help kids. Without it, one can only do damage.

It may not make you hip or gain you friends, and certainly may put you at odds with the systems of control in the world, the cultural schemes, but you stand a chance of really improving a child's life on the most personal level if you allow a bit of yourself to shine through. Children respond to that, because evolution has produced in them that instinct long before we had things like the CPS around to siphon it away. It is natural for a child to respond well to an adult that actually cares for them, and also completely natural for them to resist those who are only in it for the check.

The choice is out there. We may have these cushy titles and social roles given to us, such as "teacher" or "parent" or "social worker," but it makes little difference if we fail to truly lend the personal touch that allows anyone fulfilling those positions or others like them to make a difference in the lives of the next generation. It's the only power individuals truly manifest. If one wants power, don't go for high titles and recognition, but instead, humble and give of oneself first. The shorter trees let light be shared among the saplings, the tallest ones just block it.