i was cleaning out davis' backpack this morning and came across this.
he picked it up and said an unkind comment about president obama and showed me how he had colored out their faces.
i was sick in an instant.
in the rush of early morning getting ready for school we talked for a few minutes. i explained that it was okay if he didn't want to vote for obama (there is a school mock election). it was okay if he disagreed with obama. but to color our the faces of his family was not okay. i asked how he would feel if that was dad, and how he would feel if someone blacked out the faces of our family. "but, it's not dad."
ah, but it is. isn't it?
i think one of the most dangerous things we can forget is that people are people.
isn't that where all intolerance starts?
i read a thread of comments recently from an article about a woman who started a fast for the debates (she was a momron in favor of mitt romney). and this fast idea went viral and a major news source picked it up. i was shocked and sickened to read the hateful comments about momrons. i guess, i hadn't been exposed. but as i read comments that hoped that all the mormons would keep fasting until we all died out, or a takeover of utah, or the obvious crazy cult comments, i felt such a strange taste of sadness, and fear and disappointment.
we don't have a lot of political discussions in our home. so i know that these opinions did not come from home. in fact, after thinking about it as i was getting ready i came back downstairs and asked davis, "were you the only one, or the first one, to color your paper this way? or were there others?" he said everyone was doing it. aaah. the old jump off a cliff. which prompted another discussion, of course.
but, it did make me think. there is always someone to fill our children's minds, if we aren't the first to do so.
i know they get a lot of opinions from one side of the family;). and i admire all the research and activism. but, as my children come home with strong opinions, i remind them of other opinions held by another side of the family and some are and some aren't the same. and i challenge them to make their own and make sure that those opinions are not held with contempt. i want my children to have strong opinions, and to be courageous and well-informed. but i sure as heck:), don't want them to be informed with hate.
ever.
i can still see the stories of a documentary i recorded on vhs when tim and i were first married. i remember watching it several times in our first little dark-paneled basement apartment on the orange couches that sunk in the middle. children in war. and the hate that children so often learned at a young age.
the moment that haunts me from the hunger games movie? a moment perhaps not found in the book. when a little boy in the capital receives a toy sword from his parents in anticipation of watching the hunger games on tv. that moment, right there, did me in.
may the odds ever be in our children's favor, as we choose what things we will teach to fill them.
