26. The Rights of a Child to the Parent


Many children live in an unfortunate delusion towards their parents that becomes their greatest harm. They believe they can impose on their parents the cause for their own being on earth. Often one hears the remark: “Of course my parents must take care of me, for they brought me into the world. It is not my fault that I am here”.
 
Nothing more foolish can be said. Every human being is on this earth at his own request, or at his own fault! Parents merely give the possibility of incarnation, nothing more. And every incarnated soul must be grateful that it has been given the opportunity!
 
The
soul of a child is nothing more than a guest of its parents. In this fact alone lies enough explanation to know that a child can in reality assert no rights whatsoever towards its parents! It has no spiritual rights to its parents! Earthly rights, however, have only arisen from the purely earthly, social order which the state provides so that it does not have to assume any obligations itself.
 
The child is spiritually an independent person! Apart from the earthly body, which is necessary as a tool for activity on this gross material earth, it has received nothing from its parents. Thus only a dwelling which the already independent soul can use.
 
But by procreation, parents assume the obligation to care for and maintain the dwelling thereby created until the soul, which has taken possession of it, is capable of taking over the maintenance itself. The time for this is shown by the natural development of the body itself. What happens beyond that is a gift from the parents.
 
The children should therefore finally stop relying on their parents and rather think about getting on their own feet as soon as possible. It is of course irrelevant whether they are active in the parental home itself or outside it. But there must be activity, which must not consist in amusements and the fulfilment of so-called social duties, but in a certain real and useful fulfilment of duty, in such a way that the activity in question would have to be carried out by another person specially employed for the purpose, if the child no longer does this work. Only in this way can one speak of a useful existence on earth that brings maturity of spirit! If a child performs such a task in the parental home, regardless of whether it is of male or female sex, it should also receive from the parents the reward that would have been due to a person employed for this purpose. In other words, the child must then be respected and treated as a truly independent person in the fulfilment of its duties. If parents and children form special bonds of love, trust and friendship, then it is all the more beautiful for both parts; for then this is a voluntary bond, out of inner conviction, and therefore all the more valuable! Then it is genuine, and keeps one connected also for the afterlife, for mutual advancement and joy. Family compulsion and family customs, however, are unhealthy and reprehensible as soon as a certain age limit of the children is exceeded.
 
There are, of course, no so-called rights of kinship, on which aunts, uncles, cousins, and all the other things that try to be peeled out in terms of kinship, so often rely. It is precisely these rights of kinship that are a reprehensible abuse, which must always disgust an independent person.
 
Unfortunately, this has become a habit out of tradition, to such an extent that usually a person does not even try to think otherwise, and quietly submits to it, even if with reluctance. But whoever dares to take a small step and think freely about it, from the depths of his soul it all seems so ridiculous, so repugnant, that he indignantly turns away from the presumptions created with it.
 
Such unnatural things must be cleared up! As soon as a fresh and healthy human race awakens, such abuses will no longer be tolerated, because they are against all common sense. Nothing really great could ever arise from such artificial distortions of natural life, because people remain far too unfree. In these seeming trivialities lies a tremendous bondage.
This is where freedom must begin, when the individual man tears himself away from unworthy custom! True freedom lies only in the right recognition of duty, which remains connected with voluntary fulfilment of duty! Fulfilment of duty alone gives rights! This also applies to children, who can also only become rights out of the most faithful fulfilment of duty. –
 
However, there is now a whole range of strictest duties of all parents that are not related to children’s rights.
 
Every adult must be aware of what is actually connected with procreation. The previous carelessness in this, the thoughtlessness, and also the wrong views have taken their revenge in such a disastrous way.
 
Just realize that in the very near world of the Beyond, a large number of souls are already waiting for the possibility of reincarnation on earth. These are mostly human souls who, held by threads of karma, are seeking some kind of redemption in a new life on earth.
 
As soon the opportunity arises, they attach themselves to places where an act of procreation has taken place, in order to wait and watch the maturing of the new human body as a dwelling place. In this waiting, ethereal threads are spun from the young body to the soul, which stubbornly stays close to the expectant mother, and vice versa, and at a certain maturity the threads then serve as a bridge which lets the foreign soul from the Beyond into the young body, which it also immediately claims for itself. A foreign guest moves in, who can cause the parents much grief through its karma! A foreign guest! What an uncomfortable thought! A person should always bear this in mind, and should never forget that one can have
a say in the selection among the waiting souls, if such one does not carelessly miss the time. Incarnation is, however, subject to a Law of Attraction of the Homogeneous Species. But the kindred species of one of the producers need not serve as a pole necessarily, but sometimes of some person who is close in the vicinity of the expectant mother. How many disasters can now be averted as soon as the human being knows the whole process correctly and deals with it consciously. But as it is, they only dawdle frivolously, attend games and dances, give parties, and do not pay much attention to the important things that are being prepared during this time, in order to later intervene powerfully in their whole life.
 
They should consciously direct many things in prayer, which based always on fervent wishing, soften evils and strengthen good things. The foreign guest who then moves in with them as a child would be such that he would remain
welcome in every way! There is much talk of prenatal education, in the habitual half-understanding or misunderstanding of some of the effects that make themselves felt outwardly.
 
As is often the case, however, the human conclusion drawn from observations is wrong. There is no possibility of prenatal education, but there is an unconditional possibility of
influencing attraction, if it happens at the right time and with the right seriousness! This is a difference that has more far-reaching consequences than prenatal education could ever achieve.

Whoever has now come to realize this, and yet still associates thoughtlessly, deserves no other than that a human spirit should force its way into his circle, which can only bring him unrest and perhaps even evil.
 
Procreation should be nothing else for a spiritually free human being than the proof of one’s willingness to accept a foreign human spirit into the family as a permanent guest, to give it the opportunity to settle and mature on earth. Only where there is a heartfelt desire on both sides
for this purpose should the opportunity for procreation take place. If we now consider parents and children from these facts alone, many things will change of their own accord. Mutual treatment, education, everything will receive a different, more serious basis than has previously been customary in many families. There will be more consideration and more mutual respect. A consciousness of independence and a striving for responsibility will become perceptible, and as a consequence this will bring about the natural social advancement of the people. The children, however, will soon forget how to arrogate to themselves rights that never existed.–