My one and only bumper sticker

I don't have a bumper sticker on my car. I don't think I have come across one I have really liked and I think I am a bit of an aesthetics freak, seeking to make sure that any sticker I put on my car jives with the it (after all a Volvo station wagon needs some character and perhaps the bumper sticker will provide it). So it wasn't a surprise that stopped at a traffic light, reading the bumper stickers on the car in front of me, I began to wonder what message I would put on a bumper sticker I got to create. I figured a classy message would lead to classy, character-saving aesthetics! I raised the stakes for myself asking what message I would put if this was to be the only sticker I could ever create. As the light turned green, it came to me — my sticker would say: "Raise and educate a child without taking from another one." Three days later, this messages stands as the one I would put on my sticker.

Raising my 3 year-old boy has been one of the most eye-opening and humbling experiences of my life. These days, I wake up more vulnerable and grateful than I did 10 years ago when I had so many ideas about raising children and no experience doing it. Childhood is precious and it is precious for every one. Every child is precious, every person is precious. As I tenderly raise Vehd, I am struck by how many times a day, I make a decision that is (seemingly) right for him. More recently, I have begun to wonder if it is also right for everyone around him, not just those in the family but even those beyond.

From buying milk, to t-shirts, peaches, corn, medicines, bicycles and going to the wading pool, I ask myself — when I choose this for Vehd, who was instrumental in making it possible for me to choose this for Vehd? Who gave something up so he could have it? When you, or I, or Vehd enjoy a privilege, it is because someone put in some hard work to bring it to us. Sometimes this is great, because the person creating the experience we are enjoying, enjoyed creating it but every so often and more often than not, someone gave something up, something precious to create the experience we enjoy. What are those things? How can we choose differently? I know the obvious ones — inorganic food taking away from the land and ecosystem at large, some clothing coming from forced labor in developing parts of the world and so on. But what are the more hidden costs?

And this is when I paused to consider how competition of any kind, comparison of any kind takes something away from one child to give to another. When one wins, another loses. I would even go one step further to say than even the winner is not a winner — both lose. Both lose their innocence. Both come to believe that we live in a win-lose world and not a win-win one. How can we aim to raise compassionate children if we support competition? Compassion is not about 'being nice' and 'saying nice'. Its about feeling nice, deep, deep down inside and feeling one. Of winning together.

As long as education uses comparison and competition to motivate learning, it will always take from one to give to another. We will have winners and losers. I don't want that, I don't need that and neither do our children.

I want to "Raise and educate a child without taking from another one." Join me, will you?

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