The Path of the Parent: How Children Can Enrich Your Spiritual Life

Dirty diapers, being woken up in the middle of the night, a house full of screams and squeals, food splattered all over the walls, toys strewn chaotically over the floor, no more late nights out, no time to read books or attend courses or retreats . . . What could be spiritual about bringing up children? Isn't spiritual development just one of the many things we sacrifice when we have kids?

Many spiritual traditions would agree with this view. That's why priests and monks have always been celibate. To be spiritual we're supposed to live apart from the normal world, in monasteries, forests, or in the desert, meditating and praying in solitude. Nothing is meant to divert us from our spiritual practices—least of all a family, which takes up so much of our time and energy.

In India, there is a tradition that spiritual development belongs to a later stage of life—roughly after the age of fifty. First we have to live through the "householder" stage, bringing up and providing for our children, and living a worldly life. But once our children are grown up, we can turn our attention to the inner world. We can start meditating regularly and living more quietly and simply.

However, many parents find that—far from hindering it—bringing up children furthers their spiritual development. Seen in the right way, parenthood can itself be a spiritual path, bringing a heightened sense of love, wonder, and appreciation.

Part of the reason for this is that children are such strongly spiritual beings themselves. They naturally have many of the qualities that, as adults, we try to cultivate through spiritual development.

"Walking with my children has reminded me to stop and look," the author writes. "I've realized the joys of ambling along, staring at the sky . . . taking in the reality of the moment."

For example, children are naturally mindful. They always live fully in the present, and the world is a fantastically real and interesting place to them. As the developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik puts it in her book The Philosophical Baby, "Babies and young children are actually more conscious and more vividly aware of their external world and internal life than adults are." They have what she calls an "infinite capacity for wonder," which we adults only experience at our highest moments—for example, when a scientist is inspired by the wonder of the physical world or a poet is awestruck by beauty. As she puts it, "Travel, meditation and Romantic poetry can give us a first-person taste of infant experience."

What could be spiritual about all those sleepness nights and dirty diapers? Quite a bit, it turns out.

I have three young children myself, ages one, three and seven. When I go walking with my baby son through the fields and paths close to our home, I'm always amazed at how long it takes us to get anywhere. What should be a ten-minute walk by the golf course to the nearest post office can last up to forty minutes. This isn't just because his tiny legs mean that he's a slow walker, but mainly because he stops every few seconds to examine everything. Trees, bushes, stones, leaves, wire fences, puddles, even discarded potato chip packets and soda cans—everything is a source of wonder. His world is filled with fascinatingly different textures, colors, shapes, patterns, smells, and sounds. He can spend ten minutes examining a leaf, staring at it, stroking it, brushing it against his face. One of the reasons it's difficult to get him out of the bath is that he loves to sit there and pour water down from a cup, transfixed by the bubbles, splashes, and ripples.

Normally I walk to places like an arrow heading to its target—focused on my destination, paying little attention to my surroundings, my mind on other things. But walking with my children has reminded me to stop and look. It's reminded me that...