In my short time as a psychologist at an elite school, a colleague and I, who had opposite offices, performed an innocent experiment. We thought that children preparing to become world leaders lacked the elementary powers of observation that would allow them to get in touch with the real, with what is in front of them. Their education may have included languages, travel, knowledge, but that doesn’t mean it sets them up for reality or makes them better. Every time one of us was away, the other would hang a big sign on her door: “Absent due to illness.” And another across the street opened her door to see how many students would read the said—admittedly easy-to-read—advertisement. The results of our “innocent” experiment were stunning. Everyone but all the kids (over 15 since we were in high school) went into the office across the street to ask where their psychologist was. None of them read the ad during the experiment.

Does this experiment tell us anything? Maybe not, but it definitely makes sense.

Years have passed since then, but I was reminded of it again when I read about the Statistics Office’s concern that our population is declining, as if only their numbers could wipe out a nation. What reminded me most of all were a few photos of happy kids at that high school graduation, and everything that happened this summer: fires, the ongoing pandemic, children being killed without driver’s licenses, and the general difficulty of young people finding their place in the world. Two parallel worlds.

Thoughts about an innocent experiment at some elite school.

We think about how many children will be born at a time when it is difficult for us to talk about the path after the birth of a child. After all, what is a child today if not a bearer of life? Bearer of hope, force of change and upheaval. What is a child if it is not the contribution of parents, the state and society to its culture, to its health, to its education and, above all, to its morality, so that life continues to flourish. What is a child, if not our ability to develop, to live long, so that the country acquires a healthy development potential, values ​​and vision.

Children belong to themselves, but they belong not only to themselves, and it would be a painful mistake to bring them up in the belief that they should not answer to anyone or anything. It would be tragic for their lives if we cut them off from the chain of life, if we deprived them of their connection with all life on Earth. Just as it would be disastrous for them and for us if we assured them that everything belongs to them in this life and that everything is free for them especially. What a dead end it would be to educate them by telling them that all they have to do is look at themselves, their careers, their studies, their lives, without caring about anything around them. Wouldn’t it be painful to tell them that life is an eternal conflict in which few survive and live well, so the death of others is their life? Of course, you can imagine what these children would be like if we did not tell them about friendship, generosity, altruism, constancy, love. Of course, it would be highly absurd to tell them that they must get excellent grades and no less in order to enter the best universities (I know, I know, the competition is relentless), so what should our “bird” “do, they should also copy him, somehow he must get through this feverish rut. Can you imagine if we told them that even if they do not succeed, we will find a way to make way for them? You are not afraid of a world where children are children, where they ask for help from dad until they get old, and if he is gone, they will put on even bigger “backs” or destroy everything in their path? But imagine a world in which children do not see what they leave in their path, what consequences entail imagine a world where some children have bigger mouths than others because someone told them they were sent by God, and what would the world be like if their knowledge, their values, their artistic concerns did not transform them, did not humanize them, did not spare their souls, did not put before them a true mirror? What would the world be like if our children were born with sight and hearing, but along the way we made sure they didn’t see or hear? Not noticing, not paying attention to what is in front of them: an announcement, a danger, a gift. And in the end, not being able to distinguish truth from lies, noise from silence, the essence from the unnecessary.

Not only children, but all of us, confused, unable to read the legible notice already posted in our minds in capital letters: “Absent due to illness.”