Building blocks of responsible adulthood

IALWAYS have great respect for pre-school teachers. It’s the way they handle a roomful of very young kids with so many different characters, how they expertly manage to make them work, much more, make them listen. It takes a lot of patience and perseverance indeed, to cope with the restlessness, the endless chatters and some whining which could last for hours.

Children are the best gifts that God continues to bestow on our world, even we if time and again continue to fail in preparing the world for them, and the so-called civilized world has been doing a great disservice to this one and only habitable planet that we have.

In our small way in the Pilipinhon Multipurpose Cooperative we painstakingly started what is called a Laboratory Cooperative for children in our sphere with age bracket of seven (7) to seventeen (17) years old. Not only is it a mandate from the Cooperative Development Authority that every Cooperative should start to organize the Laboratory Cooperative for minors, but we saw the imperative to teach our children how to play adult roles in managing their savings and actively learn thrift as a way of life.

For me it is a great way to return what we, parents and adults, have borrowed from the next generation, even though to a larger extent we are already responsible for the sad state of our planet today. We have to admit that we can only take the blame for the destruction of this beautiful earth largely when we do nothing to protect it, and instead, ensconce ourselves away in our comfort zone, afraid to take up our obligation to do so even if we are fully aware of what’s going-on around us.

As our organization starts to teach our young the mechanics of savings and thrift in our little way, we discovered that doing so is also fun. Seeing our children assume in a playful manner the responsibilities of running the affairs of an organization is so “cute”, funny and so heart-warming even if haltingly. The thought that in their innocence they are trying to understand what it is like to be members and officers of a Cooperative makes us adults humble and appreciative of childhood again. It is almost like seeing ourselves back in time, playing our make-believe again, and going through the “throwback”, like the trending in the social media network nowadays.

There is no doubt that our children will be definitely better persons of the future with this miniscule of an effort. Because what matters most to children is what to them would please their beloved parents, especially if the bond in the family is as solid as the boulders in Mt. Apo.

The Cooperative Laboratory is also a wonderful way of teaching children how to make decisions, how to weigh these decisions in a way that is beneficial to their peers, and how to see and protect their world in their own small way.

Though we may think that they are learning from us, in reality, it is the children who are teaching us how to be responsible parents. It is their love and patience that guides us through our confusion and complications as we continue to grapple with our own demons.

God bless the children indeed!