Tuesday 10 May 2011

A lesson from a broken glass

Sometimes children can remind us of valuable life lessons or bring us back to reality and make us realise what really matters. Their innocence and unjaded view of the world is refreshing, when as adults we are quick to judge and easily lose sight of the important things.

A couple of weeks ago, my son accidentally broke one of our only two crystal glasses. We were given this pair of crystal glasses as a wedding gift from a family friend and we use them a lot. They're a great shape and size and we are not the type of people to save 'special' things for special occasions so they get used every week for anything from a glass of juice to a gin and tonic.

My husband had brought me a glass of juice in one of them and having drunk it, I'd put it on the table in front of me. Somehow unnoticed by myself and my husband (all three of us were together in the same room), my son picked up my empty glass and took it into the kitchen. I think he was being helpful and tidying up! He tried to put it up on the kitchen counter but there was a teapot in the way so it fell to the floor and we heard a shattering of glass and rushed in there.

Luckily the glass had only broken into a few pieces and most importantly, our son was unharmed by the breakage. We got it cleared up and reassured our worried son that it was just an accident and nothing to get upset about (he was shocked more than anything, as that's the first breakage he's been involved in!).

For a few moments, I felt a pang of disappointment that we had lost one of our two favourite glasses. I soon realised how silly this thought was, especially as I consider myself not someone to get attached to objects. It's just a glass and certainly doesn't warrant having any emotional ties to it. I was almost ashamed of myself for having had the thought! Now I think my son accidentally breaking the glass had a good outcome in reminding me of the insignificance of material goods.

Can you think of any similar situations you've experienced where something your child has done has inadvertently brought to your attention a particular value or life lesson that you had perhaps let lapse?

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1 comment:

  1. Well, when my son almost choked to death on a piece of meat, I realized that homework and clothes were really irrelevant. What mattered was to love this child every single day as much as I possibly could. I told him then that I loved him not because of what he did or didn't do but because of who he is and always will be: my sweet, sweet boy. Our relationship has been transformed and I'm grateful for that despite the huge scare!

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