To parents of small children, both boys and girls: I wanted to share something I’ve got going with my nine-year old that might be useful to change the world for the better, one little critter at a time. Maybe if we all join together? Kids are bombarded with superhero iconography. For years he’s been asking me what super power I’d want, often giving a choice of two. I always had chosen flying when that was an option, because I love to travel and hate airports and commercial airlines.
Like most of us, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about spirituality, religion, human interactions, family, tolerance and intolerance, common bonds, etc. Yeats wrote ‘the price of love is grief’. Most of us oldsters can understand that on many levels, from personal experiences to losing those we love. That said, if there’s anything that gives this life real meaning, it’s love. That is the true higher power.
A few weeks ago my now nine year-old Beanie decided with me that his super power would be love. Not shooting fire balls, or endless strength, or any number of Marvel/DC options. Since we spend a lot of time together, I too chose this as my superpower.
We proceeded to test it in subway cars and even in Fairway Market, the best place for this type of research. He radiated his superpower and discovered that in addition to feeling like it helped those in range that it made him feel better and stronger too. We’ve been trying to see how we could use this super power in various other situations – when kids are mean to him, in interactions with random people, as a way to get past anger and frustration. We discovered that it doesn’t guarantee that we’ll get a loving response back, after all lots of people are just assholes, but we do think that it gets you the best they’re capable of. We keep checking in with each other on our use of our superpower. We try to keep it discreet, not like some flashy Marvel character.
Forgive my endless blather on this, but if you have a little one maybe try this superpower out on them. Unlike Marvel or DC Comics, we’re not being proprietary with this one. Maybe we can have leagues of superheroes harnessing their amazing superpower of love. And maybe together they’ll start changing this crazy world for the better.