The Little Pencil

An anecdote from Gandhiji's life 

One day Gandhiji was searching for something. He looked very worried. A friend asked him, “What are you searching for?"

"I am looking for a small pencil," Bapu answered. His friend opened a shelf and took out a pencil for him. "No, no. I want the small pencil I am searching for," Bapu insisted.

"Use this now, Bapuji, and I shall search for yours later," the friend tried to cajole him.
"No no, you do not understand, Kaka," said Bapu. "I should not lose that pencil. It was given to me in Madras by the young son of G. A. Natesan. He gave it to me with a lot of love. I cannot lose it."

They both searched for the pencil. At last they found it. Now Gandhiji was happy. The pencil was hardly one inch long!

Adapted from www.mkgandhi.org


My reflection:
That's a lot of importance Bapuji gave to a child's gift, which is to say, to the child himself. Today we pay a lot of attention to a child's needs, or a child' s demands, to his or her opinions and wishes. But that's mostly pampering or indulgence. It's different from the kind of importance we see here. Here is importance being given not to one's own child, and not to a gift that is materially significant, and not in the presence of the child. Bapu's respect for the child was expressed in the child's absence to people who did not know anything about the gift. It was not indulgence and it was not showmanship. Respect for children and their emotions when expressed consistently and correctly helps build the children's sense of self, their self worth and sense of identity, and their moral fibre. It is not expressed by giving in to the child's demands, but by listening and paying attention to small gestures and emotional expressions of the child. The best investment is an investment of yourself, the parent, the teacher, and the adult in the child's life. Gandhiji always made time for children. An important reflection for our new gen parents.