--- In [email protected], "curtisdeltablues" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > "Curtis, you have such an impoverished imagination. > > I don't mean your ability to fantasize stuff that > isn't real, I mean your ability to entertain > alternate possibilities." > > OK help me out. Under what conditions is it OK for parents to let > their 9 year old wander off alone?
Oh, when they're confident he's going to come back before nightfall, for example. Did you never "run away from home" at that age because you were pissed off at your parents? I did. Walked around the block a few times carrying the little bag I'd packed, came back because I got hungry. (Bear in mind that even in the States, "Never let your child out of your sight because they might get nabbed by a child molester" is a relatively recent development.) Or, because you were raised in a society that believed seeking enlightenment was the highest possible calling, and spiritual prodigies (or at least tales thereof) were not unheard-of, and you have an extremely unusual child who is awesomely resistant to your attempts to persuade him he doesn't *really* want to go out on his own to seek God quite yet, you begin to think maybe you're standing in the way of some Greater Will for your child, and you spend night after sleepless night agonizing and praying, and you make sacrifices at the local temple and buy yagyas you can't afford, and this amazingly solemn, powerful, intimidating little critter keeps insisting this is what he was born to do, and finally, weeping, with tremendous misgivings, you put him in God's hands and let him go. But you're consumed with guilt and fear and the next morning you call the police to try to track him down, but it's too late, and you grieve for a long, long time. And then many years later he becomes Shankaracharya, and you realize you did the right thing after all.
