2023年英语演讲稿 自然是我们的母亲.docx

英语演讲稿 自然是我们的母亲 dy a celebrity, i would have to don a disguise of fat suit, wig, beard and glasses and we would spend the day in the suburbs of southern california, going door-to-door or making the rounds of shopping malls, distributing our watchtower magazine. i loved to set foot in all those regular suburban houses and catch sight of the shag rugs and la-z-boy armchairs with kids playing monopoly and grandmas baby-sitting and all those wonderful, ordinary and starry scenes of everyday life. many, i know, would argue that these things seem like no big deal. but to me they were mesmerizing. 　　i used to think that i was unique in feeling that i was without a childhood. i believed that indeed there were only a handful with whom i could share those feelings. when i recently met with shirley temple black, the great child star of the 1930s and 40s, we said nothing to each other at first, we simply cried together, for she could share a pain with me that only others like my close friends elizabeth taylor and mccauley culkin know. 　　i do not tell you this to gain your sympathy but to impress upon you my first important point : it is not just hollywood child stars that have suffered from a non-existent childhood. today, it's a universal calamity, a global catastrophe. childhood has become the great casualty of modern-day living. all around us we are producing scores of kids who have not had the joy, who have not been accorded the right, who have not been allowed the freedom, or knowing what it's like to be a kid. 　　today children are constantly encouraged to grow up faster, as if this period known as childhood is a burdensome stage, to be endured and ushered through, as swiftly as possible. and on that subject, i am certainly one of the world's greatest experts. 　　ours is a generation that has witnessed the abrogation of the parent-child covenant. psychologists are publishing libraries of books detailing the destructive effects of denying one's children the unconditional love that is so necessary to the healthy development of their minds and character. and because of all the neglect, too many of our kids have, essentially, to raise themselves. they are growing more distant from their parents, grandparents and other family members, as all around us the indestructible bond that once glued together the generations, unravels. 　　this violation has bred a new generation, generation o let us call it, that has now picked up the torch from generation x. the o stands for a generation that has everything on the outside – wealth, success, fancy clothing and fancy cars, but an aching emptiness on the inside. that cavity in our chests, that barrenness at our core, that void in our centre is the place where the heart once beat and which love once occupied. 　　and it's not just the kids who are suffering. it's the parents as well. for the more we cultivate little-adults in kids'-bodies, the more removed we ourselves become from our own child-like qualities, and there is so much about being a child that is worth retaining in adult life. 　　love, ladies and gentlemen, is the human family's most precious legacy, its richest bequest, its golden inheritance. and it is a treasure that is handed down from one generation to another. previous ages may not have had the wealth we enjoy. their houses may have lacked electricity, and they squeezed their many kids into small homes without central heating. but those homes had no darkness, nor were they cold. they were lit bright with the glow of love and they were warmed snugly by the very heat of the human heart. parents, undistracted by the lust for luxury and status, accorded their children primacy in their lives. 　　as you all know, our two countries broke from each other over what thomas jefferson referred to as &certain inalienable rights&. and while we americans and british might dispute the justice of his claims, what has never been in dispute is that children have certain inalienable rights, and the gradual erosion of those rights has led to scores of children worldwide being denied the joys and security of childhood. 　　i would therefore like to propose tonight that we install in every home a children's universal bill of rights, the tenets of which are: 　　1. the right to be loved without having to earn it 　　2. the right to be protected, without having to deserve it 　　3. the right to feel valuable, even if you came into the world with nothing 　　4. the right to be listened to without having to be interesting 　　5. the right to be read a bedtime story, without having to compete with the evening news 　　6. the right to an education without having to dodge bullets at schools 　　7. the right to be thought of as adorable – (even if you have a face that only a mother could love). 　　friends, the foundation of all human knowledge, the beginning of human consciousness, must be that each and every one of us is an object of love. before you know if you