... for helping create a place where we can be family.
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| Boo-boo photography |
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| Love a marching band! |
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| So proud of Scootle-doot! |
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| Boo sees daddy and joins the parade |
In order to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, we picked out some children's books from the library last week. I didn't have a chance to check them out too thoroughly, I just grabbed a bunch that were on display. Bill started to read a book about the civil rights movement to Scootle and he could not finish it. Our Scootle leaves no detail unexplored and the questions were inevitably going to start pouring out. Scootle is 5 years and 2 months old. He does not yet know about racism. He knows about skin color and about loving one another no matter how different we are. He knows that there is beauty in diversity. He knows about many cultures and customs and about our big beautiful world. But he does not yet know about violence and hate being tied to skin color or class or religion. That would make absolutely no sense to him right now (why should it ever?). I completely support Bill putting that book on civil rights down. Scootle knows Dr. King as a man who believed everyone should love one another and treat each other right no matter what they look like. He knows him as a man who had a beautiful dream about people getting along. He happily sang, cheered and danced at a parade honoring Dr. King today.
I felt a bit guilty for not reading that entire book, for not facing the tough questions. An inspiring African American woman we've come to love in our church preached yesterday. I told her about my guilt and that we just could not tell Scootle the whole story. She immediately said, "You keep teaching him about love. That is what matters." He will learn about the rest soon enough. And we are here ready to answer questions and to help him sort it all out when he is ready. The bookshelf behind me is full of Desmond Tutu, James Cone, Michael Eric Dyson, Taylor Branch, John Lewis, Paulo Freire, Vashti McKenzie, Mercy Amba Oduyoye, Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama. We do not take educating ourselves or educating our sons about social justice lightly. But we also don't take lightly their innocence, their naivety or their childhood. May they be able to keep those as long as possible. Be good to my boys, world. I know they will be good to you.
Seems like you are doing just the right thing. Love you.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Julie! I am thanking you, but also trying out this new feature. Fun!
DeleteWe talked about this already, but I had a similar period when my kids were younger, where I put down "Visiting Langston" and glossed over parts of Mary Hoffman's "Amazing Grace." But in retrospect, it makes sense. So many children of my generation were raised so soaked in racism that we couldn't even see it years later. Why not raise our kids in the world as it should be when they're young, and get that worldview established for them, so that later when they inevitably encounter it, racism will seem just as strange, bizarre, odd, and weird as it ought to.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you wrote about this. I struggle with this too - so many children's books with kids of color in them are about struggle and racism. I covet those about kids playing in the trees, snow, reading books, taking baths. We have also not yet brought it up, but Quinn is learning stuff at school now. This morning while all were piling on their snow pants and boots and outdoor gear, Quinn was singing We Shall Overcome in his sweet high voice. The rest of us stopped to listen. He learned it at school yesterday, apparently.
ReplyDeleteWe should start a book list of good books about the Civil Rights struggle and one just about every day brown children doing what children do. Oh, I would love to hear Quinn singing that!
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