It Takes a Village (18 page)

Stories about contemporary or historical figures can also make the point about the power of faith to give courage. One of my heroes when I was growing up was Margaret Chase Smith, the first woman elected to both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. I admired her courage in standing up to her fellow Republican Senator Joe McCarthy and his political smear tactics. In her essay “This I Believe,” she explained the core of her courage. “I believe that in our constant search for security we can never gain any peace of mind until we secure our own soul. And this I do believe above all, especially in my times of greater discouragement,
that I must believe
—that I must believe in my fellow men—that I must believe in myself—that I must believe in God—if life is to have any meaning.” I would add to Senator Smith's eloquent statement of her belief that she translated it into action, and so must we if our convictions are to have meaning beyond ourselves.

Preaching is a distant second to practicing when it comes to instilling values like compassion, courage, faith, fellowship, forgiveness, love, peace, hope, wisdom, prayer, and humility. By putting spiritual values in action, adults show children that they are not just for church or home but are to be brought into the world, used to make the village a better place. It is not always easy to live what we believe, however. For example, while I believe there is no greater gift that God has given any of us than to be loved and to love, I find it difficult to love people who clearly don't love me. I wrestle nearly every day with the biblical admonition to forgive and love my enemies.

 

T
HE STRUGGLE
to live up to the spiritual values we profess is not only an individual one. Groups of people, even nations, can suffer from an absence or misuse of spirituality. The great physician and philosopher Albert Schweitzer likened the condition of the soul in modern life to sleeping sickness. He warned against the indifference and apathy that can overtake our lives in the absence of love for one another and for God.

For the United States, that same warning was sounded by Lee Atwater, one of the political strategists credited with the victories of Ronald Reagan and George Bush. When Atwater was dying, he told a
Life
magazine reporter: “Long before I was struck with cancer, I felt something stirring in American society. It was a sense among the people of the country, Republicans and Democrats alike, that something was missing from their lives, something crucial…. I don't know who will lead us through the '90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul.”

I cut out that passage and put it in a little book of sayings and Scriptures that I keep. And I think the answer to his question—“Who will lead us out of this spiritual vacuum?”—must be all of us. Not just our government, not just our institutions, not just our leaders and preachers and rabbis, but all of us must renew our own sense of spirituality and work to live up to its expectations and values.

As we engage in that renewal, though, we have to beware of the misuse of religion to further political, personal, even commercial agendas. If we employ it as an excuse for intolerance, divisiveness, or violence, we betray its purpose, as did the extremists who employed religious rhetoric to justify assassinating Prime Minister Rabin of Israel. The “true believer” who proclaims that God or the Gospel or the Torah or the Koran favors a particular political action and that anyone who opposes him is on the side of the Devil is asserting an absolutist position that permits no compromise, no deference to the will of the majority, no acceptance of decisions by those in authority—all necessities for the functioning of any democracy.

Religion is about God's truth, but none of us can grasp that truth absolutely, because of our own imperfections and limitations. We are only children of God, not God. Therefore, we must not attempt to fit God into little boxes, claiming that He supports this or that political position. This is not only bad theology; it marginalizes God. As Abraham Lincoln said, “The Almighty has His own purposes.” Even in dealing with political issues that have serious moral implications, we must be careful to avoid demonizing those who disagree with us, or acting as if we have a monopoly on truth.

People of faith belong to the larger village along with other citizens, the majority of whom share many—but not all—of their values. Our laws are designed to permit us to live in harmony, even when we have serious differences over religious and political matters. But to achieve that harmony, more than law is required; mutual tolerance and respect are also necessary.

I have been privileged to meet some of our world's great religious leaders, among them Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists. Despite their profound differences, each speaks from a deep wellspring of love that affirms life and yearns for men and women to open their hearts like children to God and one another. Indeed, given the spiritual inclination of children, it is fitting that in many religious traditions they lead the way to spiritual awareness and enlightenment. As the Bible says, “And a little child shall lead them.” When we find ourselves growing impatient, ungrateful, or intolerant, children can remind us to appreciate our daily blessings, to practice kindness, even to love our enemies. As children's spirituality blossoms, it will—if we let it—open in the hearts of adults a greater capacity to care for all children, to take responsibility for them and to pray for their futures. And when we pray for others, we often find in ourselves the energy to put ourselves to work on their behalf.

At the same time, prayer allows us to let go of our children and to let them find their own ways, with faith to guide and sustain them against the cruelties and indifference of the world. In her book of prayer,
Guide My Feet,
Marian Wright Edelman looks back upon a childhood that was a marvelous mixture of spiritual joy and exuberant, though disciplined, family and communal life. She writes: “We black children were wrapped up and rocked in a cradle of faith, song, prayer, ritual, and worship which immunized our spirits against some of the meanness and unfairness…in our segregated South and acquiescent nation.” I have seen that immunity at work in my own life and the lives of others. But someone must inoculate each new generation, and then administer “booster shots” through example and ritual.

In the first part of her autobiography,
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,
Maya Angelou recounts the rape she experienced as a child, which left her mute for several years. Her life today represents a triumph of spirit that she attributes in part to the deep spirituality she developed as a traumatized child. “Of all the needs…a lonely child has, the one that must be satisfied, if there is going to be a hope of wholeness, is the unshaking need for an unshakable God.” Amen.

F
or a few weeks every autumn, when the fields around Chicago were ripe for harvesting, children of Mexican migrant workers joined our classes at the Eugene Field School in Park Ridge. They never stayed long, because their families were always moving on to the next harvest. One year, a boy who was older than I and big for his age took to pushing me and my friends around on the playground. Whatever motivated him, his bullying quickly aroused my fear and dislike. My reactions to this one boy might well have spilled over to my feelings about the rest of the migrant kids if my mother had not encouraged me to volunteer, along with other girls in my church youth group, to baby-sit for the migrants' younger children on Saturdays so that their older brothers and sisters—my classmates—could join their parents working in the fields.

Just seeing the camp where the families lived made me think for the first time about how my classmates spent their time when they were not in school. I had never before known people who lived in trailers. When we went inside, the mothers seemed nervous about leaving their babies and toddlers in the care of twelve-year-olds who spoke no Spanish. I began to realize that the lack of familiarity cut both ways.

The day passed uneventfully, and when the mothers returned, they expressed their pleasure at seeing their children well cared for. It was the return of the fathers, though, that made the greatest impression on me. When the buses dropped them off at the base of the long road to the trailer camp, the children ran as fast as they could to greet them. They were filled with excitement, the same excitement I felt when my own father came home from work at the end of the day. Suddenly those migrant children didn't seem so different from me. This brief encounter helped me begin to appreciate the importance of making judgments about individuals instead of stereotyping whole groups. It also gave me a lot of satisfaction at an early age to be serving families who worked so hard for so little.

There is probably no more important task parents—and the rest of the village—face than raising children not only to tolerate but to respect the differences among people and to recognize the rewards that come from serving others. I call this affirmative living—the positive energy we derive from taking pride in who we are and from having the confidence and moral grounding to reach out to those who are different. As Elie Wiesel, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, has said, “Everything becomes possible by the mere presence of someone who knows how to listen, to live, and to give of himself.”

Learning to live affirmatively begins with the way we feel about ourselves. Children who grow up thinking of their own lives in positive terms are more likely to value the lives of others as well. Religious teachings remind us that we are to love others as we love ourselves. Loving oneself is not a matter of narcissism or egocentrism; it means respecting yourself and feeling affirmed in your identity.

I have described in this book some of the many ways in which parents and the village can help children to develop a positive sense of themselves. When we give children the nurturing, time, and care they need, they are more likely to develop emotional intelligence, confidence in their intellectual abilities, and the capacity to cope with life's adversities. These qualities are important not only in themselves but because they help children to become good citizens who contribute to the quality of life in their communities and to our ongoing civilization.

As educator William Damon writes in
Greater Expectations:
“Even if our children were being raised to become the best informed, most artistic, and healthiest children that the world has ever seen, it would all come to nothing unless they found some things beyond themselves…. They would still need to develop a sense of social responsibility…. Otherwise they could not live together in a decent society, nor pass along what is left of the culture to their own children.”

A first step in teaching children to live affirmatively is to give them a strong sense of identity, rooted in their heritage. But that is only half the task. We know what happens when children are raised to think that their particular heritage makes them better than everyone else. A false sense of superiority or self-righteousness can lead to the exclusion, ridicule, and harassment of other people and, in extreme cases, to violence, as we have seen with ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, tribal warfare in Rwanda, religious conflict in the Middle East.

Therefore, as we help children create a positive identity, one with meaning and purpose in the world, a sense of responsibility toward and respect for others needs to be nurtured along with it. The remarkable lives of A. Elizabeth (Bessie) and Sarah (Sadie) Delany, whom I had the privilege to visit when they were 103 and 105 years old respectively, are testimony to this point. Anyone who has read their books or seen the Broadway play based on
Having
Our Say
has learned the importance of never forgetting who you are. The Delany sisters' father had been a slave, a fact he did not hide; instead, he used it to pass on to his children a profound belief in their worth and potential. The Delany children learned to honor their parents and the sacrifices they had made. Their parents not only suffused them with love but instilled in them a sense of right and wrong, an ethic of hard work, and a clear understanding of their responsibilities as human beings.

The results speak for themselves: Bessie became a dentist and Sadie a high school teacher, each of them among the first African-American women to achieve those positions. When they encountered prejudice and discrimination, they had the internal fortitude to move beyond it; as Sadie says, “Life's not easy for anyone, despite how it may look. Sometimes you just have to put up with a lot to get the little bit you need.” (The long-living Delany sisters—Bessie died six months after my visit—are also prime examples of what researchers are discovering about the positive role an affirmative outlook on life can play in physical health. Certainly it lowers our levels of anger and hostility, freeing up energy for more constructive purposes.)

The family is not only children's heritage; it is also the first “civilization” they know, the first context in which they can learn about their rights and obligations. Research summarized in a study by psychologists at the National Institute of Mental Health shows that children are ready to begin their instruction at a very early age. Precursors to empathy begin to manifest themselves in infancy, when a baby will cry in response to another baby's cry. Between the ages of one year and two and a half, children begin to help, share, and comfort. Toddlers pat one another reassuringly or hug an upset parent. Around this time, they begin to display feelings of guilt or shame when they cause distress or disobey a clear standard of conduct. These are signs that children's moral sense is beginning to emerge.

Whether or not it continues to develop depends largely on the actions of the adults around them. Everyday experiences and conversations—showing a toddler how to touch a pet or a baby sister gently, or asking a six-year-old to imagine how it would feel to be a homeless person—provide ongoing opportunities to teach core values and beliefs.

At the same time, adults must help children to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate behavior. Teaching tolerance, for example, should not be confused with giving children the sense that anything goes. They should learn that some behaviors, such as violence, abuse, or harassment, are unacceptable. And they should not be afraid to make judgments that reflect an understanding of the real world. It is realistic, not racist, to be cautious when walking through a high-crime neighborhood, or to want to avoid a corner where a drive-by shooting has taken place. Such judgments become biased only when they are motivated by negative stereotypes rather than common sense.

Awareness of racial, ethnic, and other differences occurs by the age of three or four, when they readily notice variations in skin color, for example, and are not shy about pointing them out. They do not automatically assume that people who do not look and speak as they do are persons they should fear, mistrust, or dislike, however.

Yet rather than taking their observations as ready-made opportunities to teach children respect for others, many parents ignore or stifle such comments. They may be afraid that they will say the wrong thing, or that simply talking about difference makes them bigots. But when parents ignore what children notice, they abdicate their role as teachers to the media and to their children's peers, who will be quick to supply negative stereotypes. By keeping silent, these parents are teaching bias as surely as if they blatantly voiced it.

“Every one of us has been made aware of a simple truth,” my husband said in a speech in Austin, Texas, in October 1995. “White Americans and black Americans often see the same world in drastically different ways…. The reasons for this divide are many. Some are rooted in the awful history and stubborn persistence of racism. Some are rooted in the different ways we experience the threats of modern life to personal security, family values, and strong communities. Some are rooted in the fact that we still haven't learned to talk frankly, to listen carefully, and to work together across racial lines.” He was speaking of racial conflict, but his prescription applies more broadly to all forms of bias in our multiracial, multiethnic society.

As always, the solution begins at home. Parents must learn to talk with children about the diversity of human experiences and traits, answering their questions simply and directly and giving them an appropriate vocabulary to describe what they see. Religion can play a key role. I remember once as a child having diversity explained to me this way: If God had made a garden with only one kind of flower, it would not be nearly as beautiful as a garden with many different flowers. We can also point out to children that scientists who study genetics are learning that despite our superficial differences, human beings are more alike than unlike; we share common ancestors and are all members of the human family.

At the same time, adults should be alert to the language they themselves use, even when they are not addressing children directly. Especially in the early years, when children are voraciously acquiring vocabulary, what adults say makes a lasting impression, even if it is not intended seriously. Children are not born bigots, but they are quick learners. As the lyrics to the song “Carefully Taught” from
South Pacific
remind us, you have to be taught, “Before you are six or seven or eight / To hate all the people your relatives hate.”

Within and beyond their homes, adults must speak out against racial, ethnic, religious, or gender slurs. We can say simply, “We don't talk like that in this house,” or, as a friend's father always told her, “That kind of comment has no place in this world.” We can also say to others, “Please don't speak like that in front of my family.” Standing up for tolerance and respect in front of children gives them models for how to confront bigotry on their own, whether it is directed at them or others.

When children are the target of bias, open and honest talk is critical, to acknowledge the pain and to underscore that what causes it is bigotry, not identity. Adults can often comfort children by reminding them that those who resort to name-calling and finger-pointing do not know the first thing about them.

The village should also help prevent negative stereotypes from taking root in the first place, whether through more sensitive portrayals of people in the media or through adorning the walls of classrooms and day care centers with images that acknowledge and celebrate diversity. Toys, games, and books that promote positive images of women and minorities have an impact too. There is no substitute, however, for giving children experience with people who are not like them and cultures that are not like their own, as I learned in my own childhood. Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, school clubs, church groups, and other community programs offer children of different backgrounds the opportunity to share activities and to discover their common interests. Sports teams in particular can be havens of cooperation and teamwork.

Clearly, schools and day care centers, where many children are first introduced to people from a variety of backgrounds, have an important role to play in shaping their attitudes and expectations. At the Washington Beech Community Preschool in Roslindale, Massachusetts, director Ellen Wolpert has children play games like Go Fish and Concentration with a deck of cards adorned with images—men holding babies, women pounding nails, elderly men on ladders, gray-haired women on skateboards—that counter the predictable images. Some schools are reinventing the old tradition of “pen pals,” arranging for students to exchange letters, artwork, or even videotapes with children from other countries and cultures. Others have developed history and social studies lessons about the unfair treatment—and accomplishments—of women and minorities, which are often overlooked. Special opportunities like Black History Month can be used to expose students to the contributions of particular groups of Americans. In some school districts, teachers and staff undergo training to make them more comfortable with the topic of diversity and to expose them to innovative ways of dealing with it in the classroom. Schools in districts where there are children of different races or ethnicities have formed parent-staff committees to promote potluck dinners, family-to-family visits, and workshops for parents and staff.

Yet no matter how hard schools work to teach tolerance and empathy, conflicts will arise, especially when children bring with them different cultural assumptions and expectations. My parents drilled into my brothers and me that familiar refrain “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” and the advice to “take a deep breath and count to ten” to give us ways to avoid hostile confrontations.