Mirabelli – families

The vision of the Vanier Institute is quite simple, and it really was the Governor General’s vision, which is to make the society, or have the society think and feel that its families are important; as important in fact, as the couples who will choose to make a family. So that if you create that familial context, then the rest becomes, kind of, self-evident. And it’s a bit of a sense of finally saying, ‘look individualism is running its course. You can’t be the only one who cares about your children. I need to care too. Because my culture, my society is formed, first of all by you the parent and then subsequently by the child, or what your child becomes’.  

Now part of our sense is that your responsibility as a parent is to initiate the process. But my position, as a member of the community, is to continue and to complete what you started. And I think that’s the bridge, or the break that individuality has created. It’s says, ‘You had the kid. Your problem’ And we want you to make the perfect child. And by the way, you’re on your own. I don’t have any responsibility other than pay my taxes’. Well that’s not an appropriate…children don’t respond to taxes. They respond to smiles. They respond to an extended hand. They respond to a sense of safety. They also respond to a sense of exploration. That it’s okay to fail. That it’s okay to try. It’s okay to be cheered on when you succeed. It’s okay to be cheered on when you fail.   

Those are all of the things that I think are missing. If you think about the most valuable thing that a society can offer any child, is a sense of mentoring, in all dimensions of life.