Live a Weary Life
Down the street at the church on the corner of Canal and Jeff Davis is a marquis saying, “Live a Worthy Life.” Tall order, I say.
We’ve started a Rudolf Steiner study group at Waldorf and the first group met for the first time last night and the book we are studying is called, “Education as a Force for Social Change.” It is a series of lectures Steiner gave leading up to the opening and development of the first Waldorf School in Stuttgart.
In the first lecture he talks about how a child’s development centers around the first seven or so years of imitation and the job of a parent is to be worthy of that imitation. Let’s see how many times I’ve failed in that category – I don’t have enough fingers to count off.
It’s an interesting notion that you bring this child into the world, or in my case, bring him up in the world, and how do you envision your role? I think a lot of parents are just slugging it out and trying their best and might be living up to a different motto, which is Live a Worthy Weary Life. But if you stop for just one moment and take a breath and remember what your goal is – to raise an independent and free thinking child – then you have to remember that Phase 1 is all about you being worthy so your child is imitating the best in you.
And again we learn, parenting is not for pussies.