Planning a Family, Singing the Song of a Child
The Song of a Child
There is a tribe in East Africa
for whom the birthday of a child
is not counted from the day of its physical birth
nor even the day of conception.
For this tribe,
the birthday is the first time the child
is a thought in its mother's mind.
Aware of her intention to conceive a child with a particular father,
the mother goes off to sit alone under a tree.
There she sits and listens
until she can hear the song of the child she hopes to conceive.
Once she has heard it, she returns to her village
and teaches it to the father
so that they can sing it together as they make love,
inviting the child to join them.
After the child is conceived,
she sings to the baby in her womb,
and she teaches the song
to the old women and midwives of the village,
so that throughout the labor
and the miraculous moment of birth itself,
the child is greeted with its song.
After the birth, all the villagers learn the song of their new member
and later sing it to the child when it falls or hurts itself.
It is sung at times of triumph,
or in rituals and initiations.
This song becomes a part of the marriage ceremony
when the child is grown.
And at the end of life
his or her loved ones
will gather around the deathbed
and sing this song
for the last time.
SIDEBAR TO ABOVE ARTICLE:
Naming a Child for a Favorite Relative or Famous Person
In naming a child for another person, often it is a matter of simply giving a relative the honor of carrying on a name. Other times, parents can have the hope that their child will be similar to the person for whom they are being named.
Of course, naming a child for a famous actress or actor may imply nothing more than the fact that the parents liked the name. Sometimes, however, there is an unconscious hope that the child will also be famous, or at least beautiful or handsome.
Unfortunately, when a child doesn't fulfill the hope implied by his name, there can be an unconscious sense that somehow the child failed to live up to the success or ideals of its namesake.
For example, imagine a child has been named after an uncle who was a highly successful businessman and the leader in his community. The parents, perhaps without saying so out loud, hope the name will in some way influence the child to achieve similar greatness. When the child turns out to be an introvert who is perfectly happy doing carpentry or writing poetry, the parents may wonder where they went wrong.
It has been my experience that often parents aren't even aware that the name they gave a child had any particular significance to them until the child turns out to be different than they expected. In fact, it isn't until our children don't meet our expectations that we are aware we even had expectations for them. As long as a child becomes the kind of person we want them to become, even though we didn't articulate those expectations, we don't question whether we had any expectations, or whether those expectations were realistic.
But we all have some kind of expectation of what our child will become. So the best way for parents to assure their child is guided openly and clearly to reach that outcome is to make sure we know the direction in which we want to guide our child. See Have a Plan and Know Yourself.