In the wake of yet another horrifying tragedy, glimpses of yet more parents' deep pain, I can only think to gather the ones I love around me and hold them close. I keep returning to Natalia Ginzburg's words in The Little Virtues: "We must remember above all in the education of our children is that their love of life should never weaken." Above all, a strong love of life. What if all children grew up into adults who loved life?
Ginzburg also talks about the parent and teacher habit of teaching "little virtues," which she lists as thrift, caution, shrewdness, and a desire for success. She writes, "We do not bother to teach the great virtues, though we love them and want our children to have them, But we nourish the hope that they will spontaneously appear in their consciousness someday in the future." Great virtues: generosity, courage, love of truth, self-denial.
How does anyone teach the great virtues? I can only think it's by example. My father taught generosity by giving deeply to the church, courage by volunteering to fight in Vietnam. My mother taught self-denial by placing us first her entire life. I wonder, what am I teaching my children?
In the same issue of The Sun (The Sun) where I found Ginzburg's essay, I found another excellent piece entitled "Great Expectations: Jennifer Senior on Modern Parenthood and its Discontents." I'll have more from this amazing interview in future posts, but wanted to leave with this quote that relates to the great and small virtues:
"You might feel nachas when your kid gets into Harvard, but you'd feel it even more so, I think, if your kid stood up to a bully, or for a principle, or did a good deed. Personally, I'd be prouder of that behavior. If your kid gets into Harvard, sure, it's worth celebrating, - but if your kid is the one who tells the asshole to stop picking on the gay kid, you've done something even more right." (issue 479, p. 6).
Love of life, great virtues. And we carry on.
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