Freedom

What is freedom? Freedom cannot be equal to chaos.It is first, an act of reciprocal responsibility. I, as a human being, cannot be free if I do not recognize that I have natural rights that are to be respected and fought for in order to be preserved. Those rights are essentially my voice and dignity.My freedom is not achieved, however, if I do not teach my fellow citizens that they, too, have the same rights as mine to fight for, and that I, shall fight with them because our cause is one. That is how I see and try to live FREEDOM. I live it at home, with my children. I listen and I give value to every word and act. If I hurt their feelings, I apologize. If they are asking a lot of questions, even when I am so worn out and busy, I answer; I respond, for I am afraid that if I don’t, I might be murdering their epistemological curiosity, and most importantly, their sense of initiative.I never treat my children as inferior;I show them, on the contrary, that they are reasonable and fully responsible human beings. Respect is timeless and ageless, and so is responsibility. I cannot, at any moment, neglect my essential role in empowering my children’s minds with the right mental tools they need in order to fulfill their freedom. Critical thinking , critical questioning, critical argumentation and negotiation…those higher-order thinking capacities have to be taught, both at home and in educational institutions. Someone needs to explain to the children that no one has the right to underestimate their intelligence or common sense. We need, as parents, to start respecting our children, by fostering their intelligence and by modeling the essential values we wish them to learn, and on the top of those is Freedom. When our children live in a safe, affectionate, educational, stable home environment; when they have experienced and lived the essence of freedom in their homes, our homes, then , they will be ready to claim their freedom and fight for it. The critical question here is, are we Free in order to teach Freedom?

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