A Christian Perspective on Children

These are excerpts from a lecture given by Anthony Esolen. You can watch it here onYouTube.

"Do you remember when you were growing up, back in the day when there were these things called children? And they ran around in what used to be called yards and streets. And they engaged in an activity called play? 

...[As a culture] We have become the kinds of people who do not like children. Why do I say we do not like children? We have few. If you really do like children, you have them. And if you can, you have quite a few of them. You like them. You like their company. You like their ways. You find them somehow to brighten your life. You enjoy them.

...Children remind us of our weakness and destroy our illusion of choice.

...People are afraid of children because they think that children will destroy their lives.They are absolutely right! Children will destroy their lives. That's why God gave us them. Because otherwise our lives are like little hard kernels of selfishness. Kernels of egotism. And it's really hard to break through that shell. But God sends children, as invaders, precisely to do that. To break open that hardest substance in the universe, the human heart. The child comes to break open our dead lives, and to show us what life is, and life in abundance. And that’s what the Christ child came to do."  

Paintings: Theolphile-Emmanuel Duverger (1821-1901) Hopscotch, and  Gaetano Belli (1857-1922) Grandmother

A World of Mystery

"The Mother is a world of mystery.  She loves; she does all kinds of interesting things 

throughout the house; she sings; she reads; she loses her temper; she may be as peaceful 

as a summer evening or a whirlwind of fury.  But she is always the mother, and her love 

for her child[ren] even when it is shot through all the flaws of her character, will be a 
 human love.   It may be far from perfect.  But it will be something real."

Anthony Esolen, Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child