I Blog Poetry and Prose

Soundtrack Challenge: Day 22 - Teach Your Children

Jalál (Glory), 16 Mulk (Dominion) 176 B.E. - Saturday, February 22, 2020

Artist: Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young
Title: Teach Your Children

Lyrics1

You, who are on the road,
Must have a code
That you can live by.
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a goodbye.

Teach your children well.
Their father's hell
Did slowly go by.
And feed them on your dreams.
The one they pick's the one you'll know by.

Don't you ever ask them, "Why?"
If they told you, you would cry.
So, just look at them and sigh,
And know they love you.

[Verse in the background:]
Can you hear and do you care
And can't you see
We must be free
To teach your children
What you believe in,
Make a world that we can live in?

And you, of tender years,
Can't know the fears
That your elders grew by.
And so please help them with your youth.
They seek the truth
Before they can die.

Teach your parents well.
Their children's hell
Will slowly go by.
And feed them on your dreams.
The one they pick's the one you'll know by.

Don't you ever ask them, "Why?"
If they told you, you would cry.
So, just look at them and sigh
And know they love you.

I agree that the youth today don't know or understand the fears earlier generations grew up with. Nor does my generation know the secret fears of the youth. Some fears are spoken and discussed if a bad dream wakes a person up screaming in the middle of the night. Other fears remain hidden, concealed beneath layers doubts and half remember events from the past that spill over into the present.

How do I explain to a twenty-something, the fear caused by an atomic bomb drill? We were taught to hid under our desks when the sirens went off, as if hiding under a wooden school desk would save my life if an atomic bomb was dropped on my town. That is a fear--a hell--I couldn't explain to my parents or grandparents. Now, at 73, I understand that the fears my parents and grandparents grew up with were far different from those I experienced. I also know that the fears experienced by young people today are different from those I experienced.

I look back at the, so called, atomic bomb drills and wonder how adults could thin children were that stupid. Even if we didn't talk about the illogic of the drills, how could adults think we were so stupid as to believe that hiding under a wooden desk would protect us from radiation. I know that most children are smarter than their parents give them credit for. The best thing a parent can teach their child is to investigate what they are taught for themselves.

"The essence of all that We have revealed for thee is Justice, is for man to free himself from idle fancy and imitation, discern with the eye of oneness His glorious handiwork, and look into all things with a searching eye."

Baha'u'llah2

Footnotes
1  https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/crosbystillsnashyoung/teachyourchildren.html
2  Tablets of Baha'u'llah, 10. Aṣl-i-Kullu’l-Khayr1 (Words of Wisdom)