May you wake up naturally every day of your life.
In the author Liu Yu's pen, I saw some love and a little "fear" for being a new mother, a sense of freshness, joy and sadness.
Nowadays, there are few more letters in our life, which is really a great pity. The emotions flowing in those words are completely different from real life. Some words are destined to be written as the best commemoration of children's long growth.
May you grow up slowly. From Liu Yu. Read the letter together!
Dear little cuckoo:
This year's Children's Day happens to be your centenary.
When I wrote the word "hundred days", I was really shocked by it-a person can be so small, as small as a few days. In the past 100 days, you were like a little magician, making a bunch of candy for mom and dad every day. Without you, this 100 day, like the 100 day before it and the 100 day after it, will fall into the chaotic flow of time, and it will never end.
Just the other day, my mother was chatting with an aunt. She asked me: Why did you decide to have children? I used a very common and lazy answer: make life more complete. She asked: Isn't this selfish? Use other people's lives to make your life more "complete"? Yes, I think she's right. But I can't think of a selfless reason to have children.
The ancients said that "there are three kinds of unfilial, and there is no big after." Isn't that selfish? Modern people say "I like children". Is it selfish? Biologists say, "for the sake of human reproduction", alas, how sacred it sounds, but it just replaces a person's selfishness with the selfishness of a species or even a group of genes. By the way, an old English man named Dawkins wrote a book called Selfish Genes. When you grow up, you must find this book to read. You can also find other books to read My mother hopes you will be a child who loves science in the future. Of course, my mother also hopes that you can find your own way to get rid of nothingness while loving science.
Because giving birth to a child is a selfish thing, on Mother's Day, I only felt uneasy and even embarrassed when I saw the overwhelming slogans such as "Thanks to Mother" and "Great Motherly Love". I have always had an incorrect view: a mother's love for her children is only that she bears the consequences for the choice of having children, and it is not "great".
I was afraid to say this when I was not a mother, but now I can finally say it frankly. Even, I think, it is the children who should be thanked. They make their parents' life more "complete", give them something to trust in emptiness, let them realize the mystery and joy of life opening at different levels, and most importantly, let them realize the incisive love-that is a kind of freedom, isn't it? Being able to let go of all your guard and love freely is the greatest freedom. As a mother, I thank you for giving me this freedom.
And because having children is a selfish thing, I dare not have any "hope" for your future.
Few Chinese words make me more uneasy than "expecting your son to succeed". In fact, these four words simply make me furious: if you can "succeed" yourself, why do you expect your son to succeed? If there is an idiom in Chinese called "I hope my father will succeed" or "I hope my mother will succeed", will parents feel rude?
So, Boog, when you grow up, if you want to be a banker on Wall Street, do it, but if you just want to be a baker, that's fine. If you want to go into politics, your mother will definitely support you for legitimate reasons, but if you just want to be a city zoo, that's fine. What I hope is that in the process of growing up, you are lucky to find your own dream-not everyone can find a sense of direction in life and just have the ability to match this dream-and not everyone has the ability proportional to the dream.
Yes, I pray that you can "succeed", but I understand that success is that a person has awe and enthusiasm for what he does-in my mother's view, a lawyer who feels that going to work every morning is a burden is no more successful than a barber who proudly says to customers, "Look, this hairstyle is really beautiful."
However, despairing of one's "achievements" does not mean despairing of one's own character. Mom, I hope you didn't come into this world for nothing. You can have the desire and ability to appreciate its glittering beauty and make it better with your own beauty.
Mom believes that human nature is endless blooming, and human dignity is reflected in the endless running of truth, goodness and beauty.
Therefore, I hope you are a curious person, ranging from "what is outside the universe" to "where do things go after I go to the toilet every day", which can arouse your curiosity;
I hope you are a compassionate person, and you have the greatest imagination of the suffering of others, even animals, so you are the most alert to any form of injury;
I hope you are a responsible person and realize that the freedom, peace and justice we have are just like the houses and cars we own. They didn't fall from the sky, nor did they happen once and for all. They need to be fought for and cared for by each of us.
I hope you have the courage to insist that "the emperor is not wearing anything new" in the face of power, violence, temptation, public opinion and even the warmth of a small circle;
I hope you are sensitive, can capture the irreconcilable difference between beauty and ugliness, and can find art in the details of life outside museums and concert halls;
As a girl, I also hope you have a dream. Your youth and life are not only defined by love and marriage. Is this list too long?
The expectation of character is also harsh, right? Well, it's not so much that mom wants you to be like that, but that mom wants you to encourage and help each other to be like that.
Little cuckoo, may you grow up slowly.
May you have good luck, if not, may you learn compassion in misfortune.
May you be loved by many people, if not, may you learn to be tolerant in loneliness.
May you wake up naturally every day of your life.
Buma
20 13.5.22
About the author: Liu Yu, female, Ph.D.,1born in February 1975, originally from Poyang County, Jiangxi Province, is a scholar, writer and poet, and an associate professor in the Department of Political Science of Tsinghua University College of Humanities and Social Sciences. He has published Details of Democracy, Give You a Bullet, Water Level of Thought and Yu Huan.