“Have you ever seen a bubble?
They’re simple things to see.
And if they’re not in trouble, they’re round as they can be.
But if you try to change their shape to make them tall or make them flat,
there soon won’t be a bubble where the troubled bubble’s at.
It really doesn’t matter if you think you’re a star.
Or if you think a square is really the shape you are.
For in the world of bubbles, all of the ones you’ll find are
round and round and round and round….
The way that God designed.”
*Pop*

I’ll admit it. I liked The Bubble Song when we went to Children’s Institute functions and the other children and I were herded around to learn character qualities and principles from Advanced Training Institute (ATI) students. The Bubble Song was a fun song to sing and I got a kick out of seeing how many times we could say “round” before I ran out of breath!

That being said, I didn’t like the message of The Bubble Song so much. The Bubble Song was taught in connection with the teachings on the principle of design, one of the seven universal non-option principles espoused by Bill Gothard as part of the Basic Seminar. To a child, the takeaway was that we were stuck with whatever our lives looked like. Our parents and siblings, our age order, our physical features, when in history we were born, and generally every other detail about our lives. I considered myself lucky in that I actually liked my parents and my siblings (even though sometimes I was embarrassed to admit there were ONLY three of us). And most of the time I didn’t mind being the youngest child in my family.

Instead, the idea about our physical features was what made me squirm. I wondered whether I was evil because sometimes I wished I was prettier or taller. Or fantasized about what it might be like to have been a pioneer or a medieval princess dancing at balls and riding horses. (On a side note, ATI actually taught that girls who want horses are rebellious, which made no sense to me.)

The Bubble Song came to mind the other day while I was helping to clean a local church, and I tried to fend off the memories the song triggered. I found myself annoyed with the catchy tune and the memories it stirred up. I shared the lyrics with a non-ATI friend, and then it struck me, “What’s wrong with being a star?”

Is that really a message we want to give to our children? That being stellar is some sort of sin?

“Have you ever seen a child?
They’re simple things to see.
And if they’re not in trouble, they’re (normal) as they can be.
But if you try to change their shape to make them tall or make them flat,
there soon won’t be a child where the troubled child’s at.
My precious daughter or son, it really doesn’t matter if you think you’re a star.
Or if you think a square is really the shape you are.
For in the world of children, all of the ones you’ll find are
normal, normal, normal, normal
The way that God designed.”
*Pop*

Do we really want to teach our kids, “God designed you to look, act, talk, and feel just like everyone else and if you try to do anything differently or make yourself unique, you will cease to exist”?

If I am honest, that’s not a message I want to give to my children. I want to tell them, “You are special and unique! God has gifts he created just for you and he’s put them into you so you can do wonderful things. You have a place in the world that no one else can fill. You have a special calling by God who loves you and made you different and unique from everyone else that has ever walked this planet,” rather than the message I sang growing up, twirling my finger in the air which essentially was, “Conform or be destroyed.”