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Sharp knives, high shelves and hurting children
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From: Maia <maia>
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1999 13:07:01 -0400
I posted the following to child_lit, in response to Perry's message about 'Sharp Knives and High Shelves." Another member of both ccbc-net and child_lit asked me to re-post my message to the ccbc-net. My apologies to those who read (or delete!) this in duplicate... Maia
--Perry,
I agree with you about the importance of teaching children thoughtfulness, rather than thoughtlessness, but as for the rest of what you said...
First, we don't expect a one-year old to understand about toxic substances, and I certainly wouldn't wave kitchen knives around my infant, show her where they are kept, and expect her to understand that they are dangerous. There are such things as age-appropriate understanding and developmental capabilities.
Second, a knife has many good uses. A knife has nothing about it that is inherently evil. Racism and bigotry are inherently evil -- there is no 'appropriate time' for racism.
But what really perplexes me in your message is what almost sounds like a desire to hurt children, with the justification that it is for their own good. Sparing the rod will spoil the child?
I have to admit, I was horrified when you said: "Children who are hurt by Laura Ingalls' thoughtless bigotry are also bad readers, and also need to learn to read better, for their own good." For their own good? I'd rather have children who feel the hurt when confronted with bigotry and cruelty, rather than little sociopaths, indifferent to the pain of others or themselves. Children who feel can work through and heal the pain. Children who don't are dangers to themselves and to their world.
You also said, "Children allowed to be hurt by hurtful information about the world they live in are more likely to be able to cope with the hurt and gain mastery over it-? good and encourage others to be good." Again, this really does depend, doesn't it? A child who feels the hurts of the world (your 'bad reader') AND is offered the skills and the hope to confront those pains and evils can become stronger than a child who lives in a state of denial. The child who lives in denial is probably also a very hurt child, but one who wasn't given the necessary coping skills - including kindness - to succeed. The gift isn't in the exposure to pain, it's in the love and support that allows one to move through the pain to a more peaceful place.
I also don't think that Beverly would advocate hiding the "ugly but very real truth" about "how, not so long ago, Americans of European backgrounds allowed themselves to think about the aboriginal Americans they were so happily killing off and displacing." And somehow I've never gotten the impression either that this is Oyate's objective. Rather, I think that they - and others of us - are trying to make careful choices about the how's and the when's of working through the difficult truths -- always with the goal in mind of one day creating a healthier, saner world. You get to a peaceful world by having healthy people -- and healthy adults grow out of strong children... not children indoctrinated into racism before they can even spell the world, not children whose spirits are broken at the outset. Yes, anger and facing the past are parts of our necessary cultural healing, but just like therapy, it is a complex, careful process.
You also said, "The bad things in it will hurt children no matter how hard adults try to prevent it from doing so." Yes and no, yes and no. A friend of mine's rather horrified response was to question whether you would turn the children over to pedophiles. And though I recognize that
_you_ probably don't see it the same way, doesn't it hint something to you that enough of us do - that we think that there is a kind of psychological torture in inflicting racist ideology on children that is not so very far from rape? I wonder if you understand about shame, and the terrible damage it does to human beings. Children wounded too young can never fully recover what they might have been - both because the memory of their experiences lurks beneath consciousness, and also because excessive pain experienced at the time when a child is just learning to define self from other becomes somewhat inextricably linked with that child's self?finition. Yes, wounded children can become strong, wise adults - but it is not the wounding that makes them so. Many wounded children also become cruel, heartless, and abusive adults. And others sink into depression and apathy.
We all need to know about our history and our now. We all need to know about racism and abuse, about degradation and tragedy. But if those are the first, or the primary things we are taught about ourselves, then how many of us will not be lost to the 'dementors'? Why do you think kids are killing kids, participating in gang?ngs, beating the weak, destroying their homes? I think it has more than anything to do with a sense of hopelessness. We need to meet the horrors so we can heal them, but we _must_ have a sense of faith that we can heal them, or all is lost. It is a difficult road we must walk, an amazing balancing act. Taking one extreme or the other for our sole guidance will only spin us in circles. There is a vast land between 'unbridled censorship' and inflicting horrors on a child that said child can't grasp.
Maia
Be careful with the children, for they hold the untrammeled hope of the future. Be careful with ourselves, for we are their guardians, and yet children still.
Received on Mon 18 Oct 1999 12:07:01 PM CDT
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1999 13:07:01 -0400
I posted the following to child_lit, in response to Perry's message about 'Sharp Knives and High Shelves." Another member of both ccbc-net and child_lit asked me to re-post my message to the ccbc-net. My apologies to those who read (or delete!) this in duplicate... Maia
--Perry,
I agree with you about the importance of teaching children thoughtfulness, rather than thoughtlessness, but as for the rest of what you said...
First, we don't expect a one-year old to understand about toxic substances, and I certainly wouldn't wave kitchen knives around my infant, show her where they are kept, and expect her to understand that they are dangerous. There are such things as age-appropriate understanding and developmental capabilities.
Second, a knife has many good uses. A knife has nothing about it that is inherently evil. Racism and bigotry are inherently evil -- there is no 'appropriate time' for racism.
But what really perplexes me in your message is what almost sounds like a desire to hurt children, with the justification that it is for their own good. Sparing the rod will spoil the child?
I have to admit, I was horrified when you said: "Children who are hurt by Laura Ingalls' thoughtless bigotry are also bad readers, and also need to learn to read better, for their own good." For their own good? I'd rather have children who feel the hurt when confronted with bigotry and cruelty, rather than little sociopaths, indifferent to the pain of others or themselves. Children who feel can work through and heal the pain. Children who don't are dangers to themselves and to their world.
You also said, "Children allowed to be hurt by hurtful information about the world they live in are more likely to be able to cope with the hurt and gain mastery over it-? good and encourage others to be good." Again, this really does depend, doesn't it? A child who feels the hurts of the world (your 'bad reader') AND is offered the skills and the hope to confront those pains and evils can become stronger than a child who lives in a state of denial. The child who lives in denial is probably also a very hurt child, but one who wasn't given the necessary coping skills - including kindness - to succeed. The gift isn't in the exposure to pain, it's in the love and support that allows one to move through the pain to a more peaceful place.
I also don't think that Beverly would advocate hiding the "ugly but very real truth" about "how, not so long ago, Americans of European backgrounds allowed themselves to think about the aboriginal Americans they were so happily killing off and displacing." And somehow I've never gotten the impression either that this is Oyate's objective. Rather, I think that they - and others of us - are trying to make careful choices about the how's and the when's of working through the difficult truths -- always with the goal in mind of one day creating a healthier, saner world. You get to a peaceful world by having healthy people -- and healthy adults grow out of strong children... not children indoctrinated into racism before they can even spell the world, not children whose spirits are broken at the outset. Yes, anger and facing the past are parts of our necessary cultural healing, but just like therapy, it is a complex, careful process.
You also said, "The bad things in it will hurt children no matter how hard adults try to prevent it from doing so." Yes and no, yes and no. A friend of mine's rather horrified response was to question whether you would turn the children over to pedophiles. And though I recognize that
_you_ probably don't see it the same way, doesn't it hint something to you that enough of us do - that we think that there is a kind of psychological torture in inflicting racist ideology on children that is not so very far from rape? I wonder if you understand about shame, and the terrible damage it does to human beings. Children wounded too young can never fully recover what they might have been - both because the memory of their experiences lurks beneath consciousness, and also because excessive pain experienced at the time when a child is just learning to define self from other becomes somewhat inextricably linked with that child's self?finition. Yes, wounded children can become strong, wise adults - but it is not the wounding that makes them so. Many wounded children also become cruel, heartless, and abusive adults. And others sink into depression and apathy.
We all need to know about our history and our now. We all need to know about racism and abuse, about degradation and tragedy. But if those are the first, or the primary things we are taught about ourselves, then how many of us will not be lost to the 'dementors'? Why do you think kids are killing kids, participating in gang?ngs, beating the weak, destroying their homes? I think it has more than anything to do with a sense of hopelessness. We need to meet the horrors so we can heal them, but we _must_ have a sense of faith that we can heal them, or all is lost. It is a difficult road we must walk, an amazing balancing act. Taking one extreme or the other for our sole guidance will only spin us in circles. There is a vast land between 'unbridled censorship' and inflicting horrors on a child that said child can't grasp.
Maia
Be careful with the children, for they hold the untrammeled hope of the future. Be careful with ourselves, for we are their guardians, and yet children still.
Received on Mon 18 Oct 1999 12:07:01 PM CDT
