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美联英语提供
：英语阅读：
We're
Raising Children, Not Flowers
我们是在养小孩，而不
是在养花
两分钟做个小测试，看看你的英语水平
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We're Raising Children, Not Flowers
我们是在养小孩，而不是在养花
ADavid, my next-door neighbor, has two
young kids aged five and seven. One
day
he
was
teaching
his
seven-year-old
son
Kelly
how
to
push
the
lawn
mower
around
the yard. As he was teaching him how to turn the
mower around at the end
of the lawn,
his wife, Jan, called to him to ask a question. As
David turned to answer
the
question,
Kelly
pushed
the
lawn
mower
right
through
the
flower
bed
at
the
edge of the lawn--
leaving a two-foot wide path leveled to the
ground!
我的邻居大卫有两个孩子，一个
5
岁，另一个
7
岁。一天
，大卫正在庭院里教他
7
岁
的儿子凯利
如何使用割草机。
当教到怎样在草坪尽头将割草机掉头时，
他的
妻子简喊他，
询
问一些事情。当大卫转过身回答简的问题时，凯
利却把割草机推到了草坪边的花圃上——
结果原本美丽的花圃留下了一条两英尺宽的平地
小径。
When
David turned
back
around and
saw
what
had
happened,
he
began
to
lose
control. David had put a lot of time and effort
into making those flower beds
the envy
of the neighborhood. As he began to raise his
voice to his son, Jan walked
quickly
over
to
him,
put
her
hand
on
his
shoulder
and
said,
please
remember... we're raising children, not
flowers!
当大卫转过身，
看到所发生的事情时，
变得怒不可遏。
这个花圃花费了大卫多少时间和
精力才弄成今天这个令邻居们无比羡慕的样子呀！
他提高嗓门准备训斥凯利时，
简快步走到
他身
边，将手放在他的肩膀上，说：“大卫，别忘了…我们是在养小孩，而不是在养花！”
Jan reminded me how
important it is as a parent to remember our
priorities.
Kids and their self-esteem
are more important than any physical object they
might
break or destroy. The window pane
shattered by a baseball, a lamp knocked over
by
a
careless
child,
or
a
plate
dropped
in
the
kitchen
are
already
broken.
The
flowers
are
already
dead.
We
must
remember
not
to
add
to
the
destruction
by
breaking a child's spirit
and deadening his sense of liveliness.
简提醒了我：
作为父母记住孰重孰轻有多么重要。
孩子以及他们的自尊要比可能被打破
或损坏的任何东西都要重要得多。
那些曾经被孩子们的棒球砸坏的窗户、
不小心碰倒的台灯
以及厨房里掉在地上摔碎的碟子都是已经毁坏了的东西。
正如花圃里被割掉的
花再也不能复
原，
我们必须谨记不要再去伤害一个小孩的心灵，
使他们原来充满活力的感觉变得迟钝，
这
样只能加重损坏。
I was
buying a sport coat a few weeks ago and Mark
Michaels, the owner of the
store, and I
were discussing parenting. He told me that while
he and his wife and
seven-year-old
daughter were out for dinner, his daughter knocked
over her water
glass. After the water
was cleaned up without any recriminating remarks
from her
parents, she
looked up and said,
being like other
parents. Most of my friends' parents would have
yelled at them
and given them a lecture
about paying more attention. Thanks for not doing
that!
几个星期以前，我去一家服装店买了件运动衣，和
店主马克?麦克斯讨论了一些有关为
人父母的问题。他跟我说了这样一件事：他和他的妻
子以及他们
7
岁大的女儿到餐馆里吃
晚
餐时，
他的女儿不小心把水杯打翻了。
他和妻子并没有责备女儿
，
而是把水渍擦得干干净
净。女儿抬起头看着他们说：
“你们知道，我真的很感谢你们，因为你们没有像其他的父母
一样。
我很多朋友的父母在发生了这样的事时通常都会对孩子大嚷大叫，
教
训他们要多加小
心！感谢你们没有像他们一样！”
Once, when I was having
dinner with some friends, a similar incident
happened.
Their five-year-old son
knocked over a glass of milk at the dinner table.
When they
immediately started in on
him, I intentionally knocked my glass over, too.
When I
started to explain how I still
knock things over even at the age of 48, the boy
started
to beam and the parents
seemingly got the message and backed off. How easy
it is
to forget that we are all still
learning.
有一次，我和几位朋友共进晚餐时，相
似的事情发生了。那天，他们
5
岁的儿子弄翻
< br>了餐桌上的牛奶杯。
朋友夫妇开始齐声责备起他来。这时，我也故意把我的杯子碰
翻了。于
是我向朋友夫妇解释：我虽然
48
岁了，也有打翻东西的时候。男孩子愉快地微笑起来。朋
友夫妇似乎明白了我的意思
，
语气也缓和了下来。
瞧！
我们是多么
容易忘记我们仍需要不断
学习呀！
I
recently
heard
a
story
about
a
famous
research
scientist
who
had
made
several
very
important
medical
breakthroughs.
He
was
being
interviewed
by
a
newspaper reporter who asked him why he
thought he was able to be so much
more
creative than the average person.
最近，
我听到了一个关于一位著名科学家的故事。
这位科学家在医学领域曾有过几项十
分重要的发现和突破。
有
个报社记者曾经采访过他，
问他为什么认为自己会比一般人更有创
造力。
He
responded
that,
in
his
opinion,
it
all
came
from
an
experience
with
his
mother
that
occurred
when
he
was
about
two
years
old.
He
had
been
trying
to
remove a bottle of milk
from the refrigerator when he lost his grip on the
slippery
bottle and it fell, spilling
its contents all over the kitchen floor--a
veritable sea of
milk!
他说，
在他看来，
这一切都应与他两岁左右时发
生的和母亲一起的一次经历有关。
当时
他想自己尝试着从冰箱里
拿一瓶牛奶。
可是瓶子太滑了，
他没有抓住，
< br>牛奶瓶子掉在了地上，
牛奶溅满了厨房的地板——看上去简直是一片牛奶的海洋。
When his mother
came into the kitchen, instead of yelling at him,
giving him a
lecture or
punishing him, she said,
have made! I
have rarely seen such a huge puddle of milk. Well,
the damage has
already
been
done.
Would
you
like
to
get
down
and
play
in
the
milk
for
a
few
minutes before we clean it
up?
他的母亲闻声跑到厨房里来，
可并没有对他大叫大嚷，
也没有狠狠地教训或惩罚他，
只
是说：
“罗伯特！
你制造的麻烦可真是棒极了
！
我还从来没有见过这么大的一汪牛奶呢！
哎，
反正牛奶已经撒了，那么在我们把它打扫干净以前，你想不想在牛奶中玩几分钟呢？”
< br>
Indeed,
he
did.
After
a
few
minutes,
his
mother
said,
know,
Robert,
whenever you make a
mess like this, eventually you have to clean it up
and restore
everything to its proper
order. So, how would you like to do that? We could
use a
sponge,
a
towel
or
a
mop.
Which
do
you
prefer?
He
chose
the
sponge
and
together they cleaned up
the spilled milk.
事实上，他立即在牛
奶中玩了起来。几分钟后，母亲对他说道：
“罗伯特，你知道，无
论什么时候，
当你制造了像今天这样又脏又乱的场面时，
你最
后都必须要把它打扫干净，
并
且要把每件东西按原样放好，那么
你打算怎么收拾呢？我们可以用海绵、毛巾或者是拖把。
你想用哪一种呢？”他选择了海
绵。很快，他们就一起将那满地的牛奶打扫干净了。
His mother then said,
how to
effectively carry a big milk bottle with two tiny
hands. Let's go out in the
back yard and fill the bottle with
water and see if you can discover a way to carry
it
without dropping it.
near
lip with both hands, he could carry it without
dropping it. What a wonderful
lesson!
然后，
他的母亲又说：
“你知道，
你所做的用你的两只小手拿起大牛奶瓶子的试验已经
失败了。现在我们到后院去，把瓶子装满水，
看看你有没有办法把它拿起来，
而不让它掉下
去。”
小罗伯特很快就发现只要用双手抓住瓶子顶
部、靠近瓶嘴的地方，瓶子就不会从他的
手中滑掉。这堂课真是棒极了！
This renowned
scientist then remarked that it was at that moment
that he knew
he
didn't
need
to
be
afraid
to
make
mistakes.
Instead,
he
learned
that
mistakes
were
just
opportunities
for
learning
something
new,
which
is,
after
all,
what
scientific experiments are all about.
Even if the experiment doesn't work, we usually
learn something valuable from it.
然后，
这位著名的科学家说，
从那时起，
他知道不必再害怕犯任何错误，
因
为他认识到，
错误往往是学习新知识的良机。
科学实验也是这样
，
即使实验失败了，
我们还是可以从中学
到很多有价值的东西？
Wouldn't
it
be
great
if
all
parents
would
respond
the
way.
Robert's
mother
responded to him?
如果天下所有的父母都能像罗伯特的母亲对待罗伯特那样来教
育子女的话，
那岂不是太
好了吗？
One last story that
illustrates the application of this attitude in an
adult context
was told on the radio
several years back. A young woman was driving home
from
work when she snagged her fender
on the brumper of another car. She was in tears
as she explained that it was a new car,
only a few days from the showroom. How
was she over going to explain the
damaged car to her husband?
最后，
还有一个几年前曾经在收音机里听过的故事，
它对于运
用同样的态度处理我们成
人之间的关系有着异曲同工之妙。故事说的是：一天，有个年轻
的女子，在下班开车回家的
路上不小心与另外一辆车发生了碰撞，结果，
她的车挡泥板被撞坏了。
她泪流满面地说，这
是一辆新
车，刚刚从展厅买回来没几天。车撞坏了，回家她该如何向丈夫交代呢？
The driver of the other car
was sympathetic, but explained that they must note
each
other's
license
numbers
and
registration
numbers.
As
the
young
woman
reached into a large brown envelope to
retrieve the documents, a piece of paper
fell
out.
In
a
heavy
masculine
scrawl
were
these
words:
case
of
accident...remember, honey, it's you I
love, not the car!
与之相撞的那辆车的
司机满怀同情但表示，
他们应该记下彼此的驾驶执照号码和车牌号
码。
当这位年轻女子从棕色的大文件袋中找寻有关文件时，
一张纸条掉了出来。
只见上面用
男人的
厚重笔迹写着：“如果发生事故…请记住，亲爱的，我爱的是你，不是车！”
Let's remember that our
children's spirits are more important than any
material
things. When we do, self-
esteem and love blossom will grow more beautifully
than
any bed of flowers ever could.
让我们牢记：孩子的心灵比任何物质的东西都要重要！只要我
们牢记这一点，那么，自
尊和爱的花朵就会比花圃中的任何花儿都更加灿烂、美丽！
两分钟做个小测试，看看你的英语水平
/test/?tid=16-73675-0
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