Self pity in kids

Dr. P's favorite quotes of the week

"The suffering of little children is not what is so intolerable,

but the fact that it is undeserved. "
- Albert Camus

(French existentialist philosopher, 1913-1960)

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"Often afterwards, the beloved Aunt would ask me

why I had never told anyone how I was being treated.

Children tell little more than animals,

for what comes to them they accept as eternally established. "
- Rudyard Kipling

(Brtish author 1865-1936, born in India and, at the age of 5,

sent off to live with foster parents in England,

with whom for five years he was "desperately unhappy")

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"Children seldom have a proper sense of their own tragedy,

discounting and keeping hidden the true horrors of their short lives,

humbly imagining real calamity to be

some prestigious drama of the grown-up world."

- Shirley Hazzard

Australian author (1931 - )

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Dr. P comments

These quotes remind me of why I love kids so much and why I became a pediatrician.

I have seen children suffer the torments of illness, of unimaginable abuse, of poverty and social disadvantage, of a totally unfair lot in life, all, of course, through no fault of their own.

But never have I seen child full of self-pity. Never have I seen a child who hasn't just tried to move ahead with the business of being a child - with all its attendant challenges and joys and sorrows. Unselfconsciously, sometimes to the bitter end, a kid.

Not a "patient." Not a "victim." Just a kid.

Not a day goes by that a child doesn't teach and inspire me. I wouldn't change jobs for the world.

Related Topics: Life's Major Lessons, Children Are From Heaven

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