LET YOUR CHILD "YEARN"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 18, 27 October 1939, Page 15

LET YOUR CHILD "YEARN"

T really is extraordinarily difficult to deny one’s child the things within possibility of acquiring -. especially if one knows his heart is set on them. But the point in doing so is exactly that. "His heart is set on them "-which means, also, that his mind and imagination are busied with objects in anticipation. He may, even, never possess them. And that is stimulus-sharpens his desire, sharpens his "vision" of them, of the uses and delight of them, until he has all but conjured them out of the air-an invaluable asset, this ability, to the grown creature, for wealth of that particular kind can only ever be of our own making. The child caught up in a grind of poverty that never achieves, never attains, is cruelly, even dangerously, poor. But the child surrounded by every luxurious This and That"he has only to open his mouth to get what he wants"-is the poorest little mite in the world. The invaluable qualities of mind and spirit, of imagination and initiative, are never to be his, for nothing can develop without exercise and use. And these things are not required of him. I remember when I was a small child, writing on a card which went with a gift to someone I cared for very truly, "To wish you all your wishes." I must have thought-I know I did-that I was wishing them the best one can. "All one’s wishes!" How cruelly dull. Nothing to hope, nothing to plan, nothing to yearn for. I meant so sincerely otherwisebut I wished them the end of life.

KAY