A little over 2000 years ago, a baby boy was born. One version of his story presents how this baby boy, in spite of his humble birth, was visited by a host of people all bearing him gifts: Wise Men, shepherds, possibly even angels. The shepherds brought lambs, the angels, their adoration and the Wise Men brought gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Perhaps a more philosophical reading of the latter gesture indicates a greater significance in its symbolic meaning – a conferring upon the baby of the potential for, or confirmation of, his own inner connection to Love, Wisdom and Divine Intelligence.
Either way we look at it, this baby boy was celebrated at his birth in a way that befits the birth of a Son of God and was feted with the qualities one would rightly assign to such a being. This baby boy later lived and shared these qualities with the world and eventually his life became the cornerstone of one of the current institutionalised religions in our world, Christianity, named after Jesus the Christ.
Notwithstanding that several interpretations have been overlaid upon the life of Jesus over the years, it can assuredly be said that his life did fulfil the promise of those ‘gifts’ conferred upon him, or confirmed as being within him at his birth.
In our current times, 353,000 babies are born each and every day, with a little over half of these babies being boys (1). Hence, there are over 176,500 baby boys born daily. This equates to over 65 million baby boys born every single year.
It is surely worth considering what physical gifts and/or qualities we bring to them. How do we welcome them into this world? What are the first imprints they receive, not just from their immediate, close family, but from all of us?
In the more affluent societies, most if not all babies are ‘showered’ with physical gifts – toys, nappies, engraved cups and spoons, greetings cards to welcome the new baby and for boys, largely blue items of clothing. These baby boys seem to ‘have it all’ when compared to their peers in less affluent countries, who are born into poverty, sickness, war and conflict. On one level they are most certainly more fortunate. However, what energy precisely comes with these packages of ‘blue’ based gifts, qualities, beliefs and expectations? In what quality of energy do we collectively welcome baby boys into this world?
Based on personal experience and observation, what I see is that from the moment the baby takes his first physical breath, the process of imprinting involves the imposition of some very weighty ideals, beliefs and pictures, which severely reduce and restrict his innate expression.
As a child is born, there is a moment of absolute grace where those present behold the new life in a genuine sense of awe and wonder.
Shortly thereafter, he is also greeted by the often heavy expectations of his immediate and extended family, who are themselves the subjects of the same societally dictated concepts about what it is to be a boy and what it is to be a man; concepts that are then projected onto the physically vulnerable, newborn baby.
The first conversations are often about the baby’s physicality. Does he have long legs? He’s going to be a runner. Is his build more stocky? A lifetime of rugby ahead for him! Does he clench his fists? Likely to be a boxer. It is not uncommon for families to drape their newborns in the colours of their favourite sporting team from the moment of birth. Others discuss and anticipate what career the child will take up later in life – will he be a carpenter, a doctor, a musician, an entrepreneur who will uphold the family name, make money, be a success? Much of this occurs as the child sleeps and ostensibly without any awareness on the part of the extended family of how it affects him, for good or for ill.
In some hospitals there is an anecdotal saying that when there are more boys born than girls, it presages the advent of war. Globally, there are always more boys than girls born – the ratio is 105:100 (2) Are we then implying that we are always going to be at war and do such beliefs endorse the tough, competitive, even aggressive image of what it means to be a man?
Such impositions are everywhere. I once mentioned to a friend that her newborn was distressed by the noise and the energy of the TV. Her reply was that she had observed the same thing, mentioned it to the medical staff and was advised that the baby, who was a week old, needed to get used to it.
Part of the mix can also be the emotional needs of the mother. I have often heard mums refer to their newborn sons as ‘my little man,’ and observed how the baby can at times be assigned the role of fulfilling mum’s need to feel needed.
Do any of these imprints support the baby boy to connect with what he innately is? Or do they undermine it?
Is it possible that the baby boy born a little over 2000 years ago came into a family who themselves lived in a way that honoured the qualities of tenderness, inner connection, Soul, Love, Wisdom and Divine Intelligence? Did his teachers, elders and other members of his community also live thus and so nurtured the baby boy to unfold his divine potential, clearing the path for him so that he knew how to clear the path for so many others?
We are none of us born into a vacuum and naturally look to others to reflect and to confirm who we are. Especially as children, as newborns, we need to be nurtured in a manner that supports our unfolding development of our inner qualities. However, is it the case that we can only do this for our baby boys, for all of our children, once we have offered to, and unfolded this, for ourselves?
Does the quality of our welcome for our newborns reside within the quality we live and hold for ourselves, how we cherish and truly value ourselves?
Do we need to be Soul-connected ourselves to truly welcome a Soul-connected being coming into the physical body in a way that confirms its absolute divinity? I feel that we do and that it is only then that we can move on from imposing our collectively held ideals, pictures, concepts and beliefs to expressing a true welcome from the inner-heart like:
Dear little child of mine
May the rays of Heaven shine
May you know just how Divine
All the wonders you bring to our lives
As you live and as you grow
May you forever always know
How grand and special you are
Bright as the light of a star
Dear little child of mine.
(Michael Benhayon GM Records)
Does not every child, every baby boy, deserve to be welcomed in this way, honoured in the simplicity of all that he is? And is this the only gift he truly ever needs, confirmed and lived daily by all those around him?
Permission from Michael Benhayon for the use of the Little Child of Mine lyric at the end of this blog.
By Coleen
References:
- How Many Babies Are Born Each Day? (n.d.). Retrieved August 04, 2017, from http://www.theworldcounts.com/stories/How-Many-Babies-Are-Born-Each-Day
- Sex Ratio. (n.d.). Retrieved August 04, 2017, from http://www.searo.who.int/entity/health_situation_trends/data/chi/sex-ratio/en/
Further Reading:
“Boys will be Boys”…I Don’t Think So
Men – Are we set up to fail?
Real men don’t cry
302 Comments
I love the song that you put in this blog, it is truly a beautiful way for any child to enter the world, not because it has a pretty tune or great words, which it does, but because the energy it has been written in is holding the child as an equal brother and asking for the child to be all ‘he’ is natural. It is a blessing that we have blogs like this, it keeps us questioning the norms and hungry for more loving approach to all things.
The first time I heard this song I cried. It is a powerful loving and honouring gift to anyone and everyone regardless of our age, and how gorgeous for our young to receive this blessing right from the word go.
Yes, these beautiful words resonate deeply and confirm us in the truth we are.
I often wonder what we would all be like if we were not imposed upon by so many ideals and beliefs about what a man or woman is. Men are deeply sensitive and we would have a completely different world if men were encouraged to value and cherish their tenderness and sensitivity.
Do we relate to babies, or in fact even older people in a way that is a “conferring the potential for, or confirmation of, their own inner connection to Love, Wisdom and Divine Intelligence?” Or is it looking for our own needs and preferences being satisfied? I know which one I would want to receive….
Absolutely Coleen, love what you have presented here. We as a society are completely missing the point and as such missing every great opportunity we are presented with whenever a baby boy is born. A chance for us to embrace and be blessed by the divine qualities that they are here to offer us all, to humanity. Yet we foolishly squander this gift bestowed to us from heaven and instead indulge in our self-serving ideal and beliefs that keep us from realizing the majesty we all were equally born with. A convenient set up? Maybe. For maybe we are avoiding honestly looking at how far away we have ventured from being and living the power of the incarnation we were ourselves we born into.
There are lots of conditionings around a baby born child, just from the beginning of their life. We must be aware of that when parenting, teaching … even to understand our own conditionings and not affecting those children with them. The beautiful thing is that there is always our untouched essence inside of us, ready to be reflected, ignited, inspired, …. at any moment. I, like most of children, haven’t been received for who I was, but my inner connection along with my choices were stronger than the external impositions and now I know who I truly am despite the external acceptance or not. The fact remains that our experience can serve to other children to not have to live that, by allowing them to be themselves from the very beginning of their life, allowing them to live and share their full potential during their whole life.
By not imposing on babies we allow them to be who they are. It is easy as adults to forget that we have developed emotions and reactions and a view of the world, Whereas a newborn can only feel things. They are therefore so much more aware. And so allowing and honouring this is a very precious reflection.
The impositions of the ideals and beliefs that we place on our baby boys cannot but compromise their natural tenderness and potential to be themselves.
The baby boy that entered our family was such a blessing, not because of the traditional idea that boy is best and will carry on the family name and bring in the income…it was because he completed the family, a steady, gentle, sensitive addition that has offered all the family a beautiful reflection to experience everyday. Boys like girls need to be free to be who they are, he was born ready to express himself, not in words (at that point) but in who he is, I will do what I can not to compromise that expression as he grows up.
The story of Jesus’ birth should inspire us to welcome the birth of any child with as much appreciation of the gifts they bring, simply through their qualities and presence. A child is a great gift not just to their family but the community in which they will one day attend school, work, raise a family etc. They are the future and how we nurture and support that child will be reflected in the quality of the next generation, and the next…
It is definitely high time that we recognised the link between how we are with our young and what adults we end up with when they grow up.
Not only can mum’s ‘little man’ make her feel needed but the title thus conferred at times implies the longing for a better and improved version of ‘her big man’, the ‘hubby’, a dismissive term frequently used, at least in Australia.
I love the photo for this article having both pink and blue. Recently I have visited superstores a couple of times specifically to buy colourful clothing for new baby boy as a present and have although I have enjoyed the tender and playful colours and designs on the girls outfits, I have been disappointed with the colours and the designs for the boys. Already tractors, football and monsters. The imposition we have on our young can start from day one. Great that conversations like this wake us up to this.
I have a son and a daughter and I have met them equally into the world, I see they are in essence equal and I honour and respect that, they came divine into the world and I support them to know this as a truth. Boys do get shovelled into stereotypes before they make their first breath on the planet, it is a prison that is suffocating the true expression of our men.
I’m with you Coleen, the greatest gift we can give to a child is to come to them with no impositions or needs of any kind, just us in our own divinity and grace, completely ourselves, as this is a true honouring of the divine being that they too naturally are and is our responsibility to reflect themselves back at them and support them to hold their truth.
This is a fascinating piece about how we as the adults of this world can affect the life of each newly born beautiful person by either celebrating them or by instantly placing them in to a set of constricted roles guaranteeing a life that changes naught on this planet but instead perpetuates the constrictions and the roles.
We can so easily impose on our kids the picture of what a ‘good life’ is perceived to be, but when we surrender to the precious insights of our deep inner knowing, the true life naturally unfolds.
Such wise words Jenny. By imposing our own ideas and pictures, we limit and often distort the natural unfolding that is waiting to grace us all.
“May you know just how Divine
All the wonders you bring to our lives
As you live and as you grow”
just these three lines make my whole body drop, smile and come alive. How amazing is true music, how amazing is it to embrace the truth of our children and what they are really bringing humanity.
We have a great responsibility to be role models for children and young people, and this is needed more than ever as youth are cottoning on to the fact pretty quickly that the world is in a damaged state…
How can we welcome a newborn without imposing everything on him or her? That is such a good question and I am sure not many people are aware of doing so. Therefore I love what you have written about it Coleen to give everyone the possibility to change it. Without such an awareness there will be no way of changing a behavior that held us all so trapped.
A week old baby needing to get used to TV and other noise. Why?
At birth I would far prefer Love, Wisdom and Divine Intelligence than an engraved cup or spoon! 🙂
I loved reading this again, so important to be willing to see all the impositions that we impose on our babies.
‘Such impositions are everywhere. I once mentioned to a friend that her newborn was distressed by the noise and the energy of the TV. Her reply was that she had observed the same thing, mentioned it to the medical staff and was advised that the baby, who was a week old, needed to get used to it.’ This is distressing to read let alone for the baby subjected to this barrage.
It feels as though when a child is born we off load on to them the same burdens that we choose to carry in our own lives. As we learn to honour our own lives we will become more soul connected and to honour each life in a way that befits a Son of God.
“And is this the only gift he truly ever needs, confirmed and lived daily by all those around him?” To be confirmed to know that you are great, actually amazing beyond what is known in this world is the most amazing gift to receive. All other things are great but to be confirmed in who you are and that you are enough just being you is an important foundation to have going out into the world where all is not so loving always as it could be.
To have it confirmed and then to realise it for ourselves, that is really valuable.
65 million babies born each year and how many are welcome without any pictures, ideal and believes imposed on them? Not that many I reckon.
So much is said here to be discussed. I have never heard of this before ‘In some hospitals there is an anecdotal saying that when there are more boys born than girls, it presages the advent of war.’ Today at work I attended Mental Health First Aid training the second part of a four part course and today the topics were depression and suicide. Suicide is currently the biggest killer in men including young men and we were discussing why this is. Many said because men have been brought up to believe they cannot talk about or discuss how they feel, they need to play the ‘tough’ role or talk about football. So from this and also what you have shared it is very clear to see that a lot needs to be healed and changed here and it starts with every single one of us.
We unfortunately have it all wrong or back to front how we truly celebrate babies and each other. That cherishing needs to be of ourselves first.
I remember Serge talking about treating ourself with the same care and love as a new born, its a statement that sounds great and I had a ‘of course” but the reality i’ve noticed is over the years that I’m not as great as committing to this as I would a new born. The care I take with my daughter, i instantly melt and support her and yet what that shows is the huge potential I have to be at ease with myself each day, to take the love and care because I am worth it.
When we are born and put into boxes has been going on forever. But like a plant that is not re-potted, it becomes root bound and stifles its growth. An ancient Chinese practice of binding girl’s feet to force them to stay small that caused a lifetime of pain. There is a parallel today with Ballerinas and their feet. When we attempt to contain anything rather than allow it to grow, we confine it to be less.
The other day I got to hold a young baby boy in my arms, as I looked into his eyes, so bright and large like stars in the sky I could feel how he had so much freedom, with no labels or job titles he thought he needed to be – he just looked back right at me. As the day went on I noticed how other adults wanted him to play games, perform and produce smiles. It seemed like this was because they would feel more comfortable with him behaving in a ‘normal’ way. But what is it that freaks us out so? The more I held him the more I got the sense that it’s the formlessness, the beauty of God that can’t be contained but emanates out, that all babies have that remind us of our own essence we have neglected too long. We all have this stillness and simple wisdom living in us if we just stop trying to restrict, cut it out and tone it down. Thank you Coleen for the gift of this blog.
Babies are imposed upon from day one in most instances, from the moment they are born. We load them with our expectations, wishes, wants and needs and think this is normal. And the same thing happened to us as it did to our parents and grandparents. People who are separated from themselves beget and raise children who will also end up being separated from themselves and we end up with a humanity bereft of their true essence and chasing outer rewards.
“Conferring upon the baby of the potential for, or confirmation of, his own inner connection to Love, Wisdom and Divine Intelligence”. Wow this makes my heart sing. This is how every baby child and even adult should be related to.
The impositions on babies and newborn are everywhere and this again is a creation we have allowed and permitted as human beings, but it is not something to be upset about, we just have to be aware of it. Children allowing to be themselves feels beautiful, although this is something that can be truly experienced with the process of letting go of all the ideals we have taken up of how children have to be, and how parents have to be–definitely a step by step process that requires patience. The amazing thing in acknowledging the facts of the present day world, is to keep observing and nominating what does not feel true without the need to change anything.
Michael’s song is so beautiful and not least because Michael himself is such a gorgeous, sensitive beautiful man. The impositions and expectation we put on men are criminal! Well, there’s no doubt many men do not feel nurtured for who they are and are brought up to be so hard by society that many do indeed turn to crime and drugs.
It’s funny you have no real idea of things until you see them written down and so who knew there was so so many babies being born everyday, I just wasn’t aware. So that would be 353,000 opportunities a day for us all to support what we see is needed next. Not just allowing the birth of a child to go on and on like it has been but touching back into how it was, how we truly raised and welcomed people into this world. As the article presents we pretty much set the ground work very early of where children need to be and this has little to do with truly seeing them. It’s not about seeing them everyday or getting them something but about allowing them to feel and see you truly and in that they are seen the same.
When we impose our own expectations on anyone or anything, we get in the way of the fruition of the magnificence that is waiting to unfold before us.
Are new babies still considered to be ’empty slates’? All fresh and new ready to be primed by the world to make them the adults of the future. However this never explains the wisdom that comes out of a child constantly. How do they know things, when they may never have seen or heard something before? Just like little boys only know to be themselves in all their tenderness and learn by the world around them to grow up being tough men. Are we missing something here? Should we be as adults learning from these fresh new lives that have entered the world, with all their honesty, wisdom and just being themselves.
Raising children appreciating and confirming them for who they truly are, rather than a picture of who they should be according to their gender and our beliefs is a much better way forward.
It seems that before children are even born we put curses on them based on their gender or what gender they could be, what they’ll look like, when they’ll talk, walk, speak and compare to other children… What if our own ideals and expectations can transform how a baby/child approaches the world, and by putting a huge pressure onto them this is what can cause crying, contraction and upset?