A couple of days ago I got to experience a very remarkable spectacle. Right in front of my kitchen window I saw a snake pounce on a frog from behind, devour it then scurry away to safety.

All this happened within the span of 5 minutes. Our cat’s, the snake’s natural predator, didn’t notice this leathery fiend, even though it was just 5 feet away from them. Because of which, I and a companion had to spend 10 minutes looking for this slithery fellow with the purpose of bashing its head.

No success of course as it scurried away deep in its hole and since my wife and I had to leave because we were picking up my cousin’s wife who was planing in from Manila and spending a few days with us, the snake lived to fight another day.

Partially my fault also, because if I hadn’t been playing National Geographic photographer I would have had ample time to hit its head with the baseball bat I keep handy around the house. Was it venomous?, the folks around my house say it is. Rather than take chances it would be best to kill it.

With the experience of watching that, this post of mine has blossomed to a budding allegory on parenthood and child rearing.

Fatherhood has been a great experience for me. The time I get to spend with my son I cherish very much. A cousin remarked to my wife in jest that we could be “stage” parents, since we are overly protective of our son. I guess that’s a trait first time parents acquire instinctively to make up for their lack of experience in taking care of kids. Every bump and bruise is treated like a national calamity and all systems are on Defcon 1 all the time.

As parents its but natural that we want to keep our children from Harm’s Way. The bond between parent and child is indescribable. It is innate that you do not want to see your child suffer. As parents we spend time protecting our children from what is seen and foreseeable. But sometimes we fail to protect them from the snakes that lay hidden in the grass that pounce on them, poison them from within and devour their souls afterwards (A-ha!, here in lies the allegory.)

So what are these poisonous snakes? The snakes that poison our kids morality and sense of right from wrong. So yes, we could spend ample time teaching them the difference of good and bad and filling them with enough religion to turn them into prospective Pope’s, but if we lead them down a path full of snakes, then we as parent’s still failed them in the end.

I often wondered why people’s distinction of what is acceptable behaviour are different from others. Then I came to the realization that it is because of the environment that they are exposed to, be it their chosen profession or the environment they grew up in, has led them to have a different sense of moral balance and justice. The unacceptable in common convention becomes the acceptable to them.

With this, I’ve come to the conclusion that we must not only teach our children the difference between right from wrong (with Christ’s teachings as a barometer) but also exert effort to ensure that the path that our children traverse will not expose them to the temptation that will test their moral compass.

If we can’t be the cats that protect them from the poisonous snakes, then at least we should work to not lead them down a path full of snakes.

You plant a demon seed,
you raise a flower of fire.
See them burning crosses,
see the flames higher and higher.

Bullet the Blue Sky - U2

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