There’s a Lot of Good in All of Us

by Judy Klipin

Thoughtful, generous, creative, resilient and dependable. These are some of the qualities of adult children that we don’t pay so much attention to. Because we ‘judge ourselves without mercy’ we tend to look for the negative – the bits that we want to change. But there is so much that is positive and wonderful in every one of us too.

Four days ago fires broke out in Cape Town and have been burning ever since. I have lived in this country my whole life and can’t remember fires of this severity ever happening before. Private homes, nature reserves, forests and vineyards have been destroyed by the blazes. Some places have been declared disaster areas. Miraculously no person has been seriously injured.

It has been horrific. Really, really horrific.

And yet.

South Africans, in true adult child style*, have stepped up and stepped in. All over the country, but especially in Cape Town, people have been demonstrating just how good adult children are in a crisis. Hundreds of volunteers are working around the clock to support the overstretched fire fighting teams (many of whom have been working for more than 36 hours without a break). From sunglasses and sunblock (at 43 C, yesterday was the hottest day in over 100 years in Cape Town) to medicines, food and water, every need of the firemen and women was met. Halaal meals, diabetic drinks, offers of childcare for the children of the firefighters, food, water and shelter for displaced people and animals…everybody and everything has been thought about and made provision for.

I am not suggesting that a crisis of this magnitude would be responded to any differently elsewhere. I do, however, believe that there is a certain special empathy that comes with being an adult child. And, no matter where we are in the world, we can only benefit from empathy.

The Cape Town fires have reminded us of the many positive attributes of people, but I hope that we can remember to appreciate all our good bits without needing such stark and scary reminders.

 *I believe that South Africa is a nation of adult children and that, as a nation, South Africa is an adult child. I won’t go into too much detail here, but suffice to say that, for a variety of complex and far-reaching reasons, we have historically had a dearth of good adult role models. This means we have had no effective modeling of what it looks and feels like to be calm, rational, empowered and confident, and display many of the more challenging traits of being an adult child. It also means that we display the more positive aspects of adult children, too.

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