Dear Parents, don’t protect your children — include them instead

They were speaking in Chinese so the dialogue is what I could tell based on the gestures.

The old man instructs the little boy, “Okay, stack it on the trolley! Then you pull it.”

The kid wasn’t fully oriented, so the old man went on to stack the basket on the trolley himself.

“After this you pull the trolley!”, and the boy did that. “Wait, wait!” There were still trays to be put on the trolley, but the boy was already pulling the trolley. Even though he was shouting, there was no aggression in the old man’s voice. It was just the loud volume market voice that tradesmen have.

After all the trays were on the basket on the trolley, the old man told the boy to get up on it. Slowly he climbed. The boy was just dangling at some point so the old man helped him up. Off they went — the old man pulling the trolley and the boy enjoying the view from his makeshift train.

***

I have come to believe that the greatest favour a parent can do for their child is not to protect them, but to include them. Rather than having them live in pretty glass boxes, away from all the harm and danger of the world, parents should bring their children with them as much as they can. The child may fall and trip, but the parent is always there. The child should be asked to help in whatever the child can. The parent’s care will set the limits for what the child will be asked to do, and how the child is treated, much like the old man in the photo — who did not react in anger when the boy was slow to catch up.

In those moments, the child will learn how to be in this world. In those moments, the child can learn about their parent, even if they will only realise the meaning a decade later.

I don’t believe that parents should be loyal to their work thinking that they are being loyal to their family. The first is a means to an end. We already have too many children who grow up living a convenient life, but realising that they do not know their parents. They were too busy ‘working for the family’, and protecting the children by separating them from everything else that makes up the ‘adult’s life’.

I’m not a parent yet, but I honestly believe in this. If you are one now or you will be one later, I hope you remember it too. If you steer a ship for most of your waking moments, don’t leave your child behind at shore. Bring them on deck with you, they will thank you for it when they look back to their childhood.