OF CONVENTIONAL CHILDREN AND
UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
By Jay de Leon

I think it was meant to be one of those funny or smart-alecky emails about kids.  It was entitled “Consider Yourself Lucky.”  In the text, it said something like “Repeat after me, I will not complain about my kids,” repeated about half a page.

This was followed by half a dozen photographs of teens or young adults with extreme tattoos, piercings and body and face modifications.  In the last picture, the kid had a face only his mother could love (assuming she could recognize him in the first place) because his head was completely covered with tattoos, piercings, face modification and hair coloring.

It is a scary thought that medical science can alter a human face or head so it now looks like the face of a snake, a bird, a grasshopper and so on.  What is even scarier is that some people actually make this permanent, life-changing transformation.

One of the lessons in life I have learned is to be supportive and love my children regardless of certain decisions they may have made about career, hairstyle, life partner, sartorial look, sports choice, insurance carrier and yes, even body modification.  Some people call that unconditional love. 

I remember as a little kid what my mom would say when we asked her about an upcoming baby about its sex, looks, etc.  She would say, I just pray for a healthy baby.  Nowadays, I can almost hear parents say, I just hope for conventional or normal children. 

So as the email suggests, I should consider myself lucky for having conventional or normal children, or at least children who look nowhere like those in the email.  But I disagree.  Luck has nothing to do with it.

If you shower your children with appropriate doses of love, discipline, and guidance, and help them develop some self-esteem, some purpose in life, love for their fellow man, common sense and a belief in God or some spiritual grounding, chances are they will grow up to be healthy, happy, productive, and emotionally balanced human beings. 

They would feel no need to transform their physical being into something else they want to be.  They would be secure in their own skin, their own natural skin, that is.