Rosena, my six-year-old stepdaughter, is mad for horses. I think it began with Horseland, a horrible-sounding cartoon (which I have never seen). But it had ignited in her a love of all things equine, which is a lot of fun, so I should not complain too much.
As I was reading from The Black Stallion Returns last night, I found myself editing heavily. Walter Farley’s sequel to The Black Stallion was originally published in 1945 and is (in my humble opinion) horribly written. How many times can young Alec look or act “determinedly,” and is that even a word? What is worse, the book reflects the casual prejudice and ignorance of the time — the Bedouins of Arabia are portrayed as backward and swarthy. And, it is also really violent.
So, as we approached the denouement, I found myself trying to keep the action going while avoiding the fact that the swarthy Bedouin was about to drive Alec and The Black off a cliff to certain death.
Without that bit of action, the whole chapter made no sense. Rosena was half asleep and maybe not following any of this, but I did not want her last words and images of the day to be of horse and boy smashed in a rocky tomb.
If protecting her from imaginary violence is tough, shielding her from real violence is even more difficult. And is it the right thing to do?
Since she entered kindergarten last fall, our violent and unpredictable world has pressed in close. In December, a young man armed to the teeth massacred 20 kids and six adults at an elementary school less than 80 miles from our town. Just last week, two heavily armed young men detonated bombs at the Boston Marathon’s finish line killing three and injuring hundreds. Our plan was to be right there, too… cheering our friend as she finished the 26.2-mile course.
And then, of course, a little further away is the daily dose of violence wrapped in plastic and delivered to our door every morning — killing in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq; saber-rattling and threats of war on the Korean peninsula; death and destruction from West Texas to Dhaka, Bangladesh; the random and not so random brutality displayed in inner cities and suburbs throughout our country; the grind of poverty, racism and sexism; the looming threats posed by cataclysmic climate change, nuclear weapons proliferation and environmental destruction. The list goes on and on.
Can I protect her from all of this? Should I?
Growing up, my family and community watched the news every night. It was the only TV I got to watch, so I was there in the front row. When I was about Rosena’s age, I watched transfixed as the Iran hostage crisis unfolded, Mount Saint Helens volcano exploded in Washington State, the Irish Republican hunger striker Bobby Sands starved to death in British custody, four U.S. church women — Jean Donovan and Sisters Ita Ford, Maura Clarke and Dorothy Kazel — were raped and murdered in El Salvador, and President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II were both shot and injured (separately). The whole time, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock stood at 7 minutes to nuclear midnight (it is 5 minutes today, by the way).
These where what we talked about around the dinner table. And it was terrifying. I had nightmares. I worried. I was preoccupied by these events. I recently found a “poem” I wrote when I was nine. “What will happen when the bomb comes shoting (sic) down? I am not in a hurry to know. I don’t want to see it come tumbling down. The president will say: I declare war on Russia, or India or Norway or any other country. But it’s not their fault. We could have prevented it from happening. I hope we can someday.” Terrible poem. It does not even rhyme. It is written in my best penpersonship and illustrated with little bombs.
When I was Rosena’s age, I knew a lot about nuclear weapons. We watched grainy black and white documentaries about Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the wall of our living room. I could fold paper cranes and tell you the story of Sadako, the little girl in Hiroshima who died of leukemia even though she was not even born when the United States dropped the two nuclear bombs on her country. She tried to fold 1,000 paper cranes so that the gods would make her better. I also knew about hunger and starvation, how the billions we spend on war preparation take food and nutrition from the people who need it most. It made sense I knew all this. It helped me understand my immediate reality — going to lots of protests, watching the people I loved getting arrested, collecting food from dumpsters at a big produce terminal and sharing it with hundreds of our neighbors on a weekly basis.
Rosena is not writing poetry yet, but she is churning out art at a prodigious rate. I marvel at her cheerful drawings and art projects — carefully colored in blocks of color, grand sweeps of magic marker and crayon, intricate illustrations of her big loving family, of me and her dad, her mom and stepdad, grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. Each drawing comes with a long and elaborate backstory that she relishes in telling. There are no nuclear bombs or heavily armed men lurking in the background. Nuclear aggression and mutual assured destruction are not part of the picture. There is not even a hint of deprivation or longing — except for deceased and beloved cats and the dog and horse she fully expects one of us to get for her someday soon.
Within an hour or so of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, we got an email from her school with suggestions and instructions about how to talk about the tragedy — simple and brief reassurances that she is safe and that school is safe. Over the weekend, we got another email updating parents and caregivers on new school security procedures and telling us how they planned to handle discussions with the kids on Monday. “In K/1 we will not make any reference in the classrooms to the incident. As we normally do, children will write about their weekend. If any students mention the incident, the teacher will do a check-in with them individually.”
As far as I know, Rosena does not know about the Sandy Hook massacre or the Boston bombing — she is blissfully unaware. And despite my own youthful exposure to the dark side, I think that is a good thing.
Lots of kids don’t have the luxury of being shielded from tragedy and deprivation. Almost 17 million kids in this country are hungry. Every hour, 84 kids end up in a U.S. emergency room as the result of violence perpetrated against them. And there is no “war” on our urban streets and suburban cul-de-sacs. The picture is equally grim (or worse) outside of our borders — every five seconds, a child dies of hunger somewhere in the world.
I want Rosena to know all of this and feel it too. I want her grow up compassionate and empathetic. I want her to work for justice and peace. I want her to be curious about people and empowered to help them. She already is and those impulses will grow and mature with time. But, right now, I just want her to be six years old — innocent, lucky, happy and horse mad.
Thanks again Frida, nice reflection. Living in Kenya we are cannot shield our 7 and 6 yr old girls from violence and poverty. While we do not want our children to experience and live the ravages of either we do our best to expose them to poverty in a serious way and develop genuine relationships in that context. Violence is much trickier …. of course we try to shield them from genuine 1st hand experiences of violence yet I’m not shy to explain what they might hear on the radio or hear spoken about. So I guess I’m ok with the 2nd and 3rd hand experiences of real life violence ….. I’m much more vigilant about shielding from violence masquerading as entertainment (books, videos etc…). I guess my criteria would be is the violence portrayed in a way that can evoke genuine, sincere questions and answers (such as the news) OR is it sanitized in such a way that has the children practically gloss over it (yet perhaps internalize it)
I am grateful for this article, as a Quaker, it speaks my mind. Please keep up thee good work, it is our future.
The problem with shielding kids is they have no idea what to look for when bad people want to take advantage of them. It’s finding a way to present things so they don’t look as bad as they are but educating them at the same time.
There are too many bad people in the world that know how to look like the good guys, priests, teachers, leaders, the military, and kids need to be aware of what can happen to them.
We live in a world of evil not good.
http://www.theusmarinesrape.com/FaceBook.html
Thoughtful article and thoughtful comments as well.
I suppose it comes down to telling them as much as is needed or appropriate at the time – much like later sex education. As little as possible is vital IMO – there’s no gain from over-preparation, and plenty of downsides to filling up too much of their young impressionable lives with any more “evil” than what is absolutely necessary.
Yes, we should protect our children from exposure to violence, and we should protect ourselves as well. Many of the specific decisions a parent makes have to be adjusted to the individual child, but I know that I made the right decisions for my child, whom I adopted in China when she was 13 months. A few months after I brought her home – huge culture shock – I turned on the television to distract her while I got some unpacking done. There was a Mel Gibson romantic comedy flick playing, which from my 46 year old perspective seemed harmless (hadn’t been around babies in 20 odd years, oops!). Suddenly a helicopter swooped in on this pastoral scene that was playing, with a gunman shooting from it at the protagonists. My baby, who knew minimal English, ran up to the screen, crying out “Owie! Owie!” I was quite taken aback by the accuracy of her perceptions and her response. (I also turned off the tv.) I quickly learned that I had a gentle, sensitive and compassionate little soul on my hands. (I think that this is a good assumption to make about the character of any baby, BTW.) Exposure to violence, or the threat of violence, was deeply disturbing to her, and resulted in sleep disruption and nightmares, so I did not expose her to anything of a violent nature, most especially television news. The Teletubbies and Mr. Rogers filled her with contentment, so that is what we watched. Along the way, I discovered that I was much calmer and peaceful when I was not exposed to television news, so now I get 95% of my news from alternative and international news websights. Fast forward 13 years later, and I have a child who is still sweet and innocent at age 14. No precocious drugs or sex or an antisocial attitude. She is kind and helpful, and assumes the best about other people. She cares deeply about social injustice, and like almost all kids of her generation feels a deep connection to the earth. Her introduction to the suffering in the world has come primarily through our discussions and the books and music I share with her. She respects me, and wants to spend time with me. Downside? It is hard for her to deal with the faux sophistication of the other kids that surrounds her in her large, inner city school she attends. Other kids assume that she is something of a goody, goody, but they like her. It is hard for her to deal with the casual emotional cruelty that a lot of the other girls dish out, but she will only take so much crap from anyone. My conclusion? Protect your child from extraneous violence, particularly graphic violence. Treat your child with respect. Love your child. Model kindness. The results are bound to be good!
Excellent statement Susan!
If you don’t mind, I’d like to offer help on a writing detail that will help your posts get read. Break up what you say into paragraphs. In fact I did that on my word processor so I could read it more easily. This will help get out your excellent ideas and your willingness to share your feelings and experiences.
Thanks for your response to this important issue.
donilo
Thank you, Frida Berrigan, for this piece. I’m a European American Quaker womun Peace activist/contemplative, born in 1964. My siblings and I grew up without a tv in the house but with many books. Especially influential was “A Pictorial History of the Negro in America” (which has been re-issued with a different title).
In our house, we children were given positive and creative ways to respond to our understanding and feelings about the violence and depravity and over-indulgences in the world. We joined our parents and others in vigiling, leafleting, etc. And, there was great effort to emulate the Quaker testimonies of simplicity, equality, peace, integrity, and community – to be teachable and loving.
Many years ago, I read of a lower-elementary school-age class being asked by the teacher: who among the students believed there would be a nuclear war? There was only one student who believed there would NOT be a nuclear war. Why? the student was asked. The student responded that her daddy goes to meetings to stop it.
Perhaps, the reason some non-miserable parents shield their children from the miseries of the world is because, deep down, they don’t want their children asking – once the children are confronted with miseries of the world – “What are we going to do to stop it, Mommy/Grandpa/Neighbor?”
I try to make my whole life a loving protest to the miseries of the world – and include laughter, crying, joy and singing in that effort.
Stand with her, Frida. You cannot stop being a parent. When my own daughter was young, the two of us would sit in front of our portable and diminutive-screened TV and “talk” about the nefarious techniques and methods Madison Avenue used to sell our society into a beehive of consumerism. I was determined not to raise my daughter in such a way that left her an unquestioning zombie drone. I would ask her problem-solving questions about the commercial and open-ended inquires–even on macroeconomics and our own family finance issues.
I am happy to say she has grown into an open-hearted remarkable woman who is an excellent schoolteacher and an advocate for the poor and marginalized. I have no idea, of course, and I cannot claim credit for her save my own DNA but I am proud to call her my child.
Parenthood is not beanbag. Talking with adults today allows me the effort to empathize with the difficult tasks we have before us in raising up children into a global culture. What can make me sad, however, are those very same parents who have obviously grown up in less than optimum circumstances and are actually children raising children. We humans have such a propensity for passing along our own woundedness and this makes it doubly hard sometimes because we have to raise up ourselves and at the same time raise up a new generation….