I feel that the confusion inside of me
My doubts and fears,
Would shock you
If I brought them out.
I know you know
All of that exists,
And you know it exists in me,
But you would rather,
Let it all remain anonymous.
And so I am alone
With my uncertainty about God,
My preoccupations with sex in a sex-orientated world,
My worries about my education and future,
The ambiguous relationship to you,
And the difficulties with my friends.
I know you are afraid to become vulnerable:
You would be embarrassed
To see another side of me
And to show another side of yourself;
And you don’t want our relationship to change
Even though it is phony in parts;
And above all
You want everything to remain predicatable
Because you love your peace too dearly.
And so I have very little choice
But to keep everything inside of me
To try to work it out
Alone
But if you let me talk,
If you invited me to talk
And could listen
Without being shocked
Without remaining aloof for your protection
Without immediately having all the answers
(even though I think you have answers
And good ones too)
Without playing therole of the knwoing parent,
If you could enter into the process of my life
And be beside me,
Then
That would mark the passage
From father/son to father/friend
And we could see each other in a new way:
We would be brothers.
Ulrich Schaffer
For the Love of Children