Raising children in an age of Peshawar, Ferguson and Paris.
Peshawar, Ferguson, Paris, a potential gunman threat at my son’s school. They have made me pause. They have made me hold my children even closer to my chest. Not just for them but for my own sake. I have wanted to feel warm and close, to know that I can still trust in humanity, trust in my own self. While the immediate shiver of these events has settled, they circle under my closed eyelids. I am restless to find some answers, some answers on how to hold onto my faith in humanity and beyond that how to raise my two sons so they can walk the earth with goodness in their hearts. I share one moment of clarity in my continued quest, my stumbling and struggle to raise my sons in this age of violence.
I was out with my older boy and his two classmates on Friday. We chatted about this and that, about foods we love and music we want to listen to. After four hours of conversing, I could not but help notice that the children were all most readily drawn to that which they knew. They shied away from what they didn’t know. They even had reasons for why they would not try things they don’t know about. The reasons colored those unknown experiences, foods, music and people in a negative light.
Perhaps, one reason we loathe, run away from, opine negatively about and even hate is because we don’t know, we don’t understand. Hatred, loathing, disdain and dislike are rooted in what we don’t understand. Long before there is contact, connection and disagreement that leads to these negative feelings, there is just the lack of understanding. Simple lack of understanding, of not knowing can lead to dislike. Even a disagreement is rooted in not fully understanding, in not seeing something both from your own perspective, and, from the other person’s perspective and realizing that perhaps both perspectives are connected to the same consciousness that makes us all human.
Now this might all be starting to sound like some mumbo-jumbo to some of you so lets get back to the children. They make everything easier to understand. One boy remarked, “Nope, I don’t like to eat that!” To which another quipped, “Have you tried it?” The response, “No I haven’t but I just cannot be bothered to try it.” “Then, how do you know?” “I don’t and really I don’t care.” Not knowing leads to lack of care.
Dealing with ambiguity, maintaining poise in the face of unknown situations, reaching out and connecting to experiences, places and people you know nothing about — these are some of the most prized qualities of a 21st century learner. They are tied and all speak to one quality — to be curious and caring when faced with someone or something unknown.
And how might we nurture this?
With questions, not statements. “What do you imagine it will taste like when you eat it?” “What do you believe it will make you feel?” “Does it look like something else you don’t like?” Paraphrase these questions for people and places that are new and unknown.
By modeling. Take a chance, try something new. Reach out to a stranger, a new food, dance like nobody is seeing you.
Stay with the discomfort. The unknown is uncomfortable. The human mind wants answers, conclusions, categories, decisions. It is uneasy and even scary facing somethingh unknown. For a moment I want to pause and point out that I am referencing situations that are not obviously threatening — poisonous foods, animals and threatening people. With that said, when faced with a new person, food, experience, place that makes your hair stand up, your feet shiver, your belly feel funny, pause. Breathe. Pause and stay with the discomfort. Just be with the fear. What happens when the fear does not take over us, when we don’t become the fear? Perhaps we can see it, and, eventually see through it.
How might we invite our children to stay with their feelings of discomfort? By not explaining them away, not wishing them away, not distracting them. But instead by holding them close and allowing them the space and the freedom to feel their fears fully, to see them and to eventually see through them.
On this Martin Luther King Day, I wish myself, my children and you, curiosity and compassion in the face of the unknown.