{"id":26001,"date":"2015-07-02T05:00:31","date_gmt":"2015-07-02T09:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=26001"},"modified":"2015-06-30T16:50:18","modified_gmt":"2015-06-30T20:50:18","slug":"talking-to-kids-about-the-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2015\/07\/talking-to-kids-about-the-news.html","title":{"rendered":"Talking to Kids about the News"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Some years ago I read the book Nixonland. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and the glimpse it provided of the turbulent 1960s. But\u00a0the book gave me a gift I didn\u2019t realize at the time.\u00a0We all see history happening all around us every day, but we usually don\u2019t notice it. Nixonland made me keenly aware of it. Someday a popular history book covering our current period will mention Michael Brown, Dylann Roof, and even Rachel Dolezal. It will mention Hobby Lobby and the birth control mandate, Obamacare and Benghazi and conservative opposition to Hilary Clinton, and, yes, yesterday\u2019s\u00a0Supreme Court decision, Obergefell v. Hodges.<\/p>\n

I think a\u00a0lot of parents struggle with knowing how much they should let their children know of the news and current events, and I get that. For myself, I want my\u00a0children\u00a0to remember the history we are currently living through. My son, Bobby, is still too young to understand news or current events, but the same is not true for my six-year-old daughter, Sally. I want Sally\u00a0to be able to tell her grandchildren that she remembers<\/em> when marriage equality became the law of the land in every state. As hard as it may be, I want her to remember Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and Freddie Grey. I want her to remember when public opinion turned against the Confederate flag.<\/p>\n

Of course, there are limits to what I am comfortable telling\u00a0Sally. I\u2019m not sure what I\u2019d say to her if another\u00a0Sandy Hook shooting happened today, for example, and I often translate weighty things into language a six-year-old can understand, trying to take the edge off in the process. I suppose\u00a0it\u2019s not so much about helping Sally\u00a0keep up with the news as it is\u00a0exposing her to major currents that I know will have historical significance. The conversation surrounding Black Lives Matter, or the push for marriage equality, these things aren\u2019t going to be forgotten. A random plane crash? Not so much.<\/p>\n

I also think we often underestimate children\u2019s ability to process and look for solutions. For example, Sally understands the principles behind global climate change, and she understands how dire the consequences promise to be. Yet her response is not to feel depressed or defeated but rather to look for solutions. She\u00a0once spent an entire car trip brainstorming alternative energy sources, and this wasn\u2019t something she thought about for a while and then forgot about, either\u2014Sally actively encourages Sean and I to recycle and is sincerely concerned about protecting the environment, not out of fear but out of optimism.<\/p>\n

Other topics are weightier. Sally was in the car with me late last year<\/a> as I listened to an NPR report about Tamir Rice, tears running down my cheeks. As I struggled to hold back sobs, I sought to explain the situation to Sally. How do you explain structural racism and individual biases to a five-year-old? I don\u2019t have an answer to that question, but I did try. And on some level, Sally understood. Sally goes to school with black children and has black friends (as cliche as that sounds), and was able to grasp that the world will be a harder place for them than it is for her. That conversation finished with her resolve to make a difference, a resolve born out of her strong sense of fairness and justice.<\/p>\n

We talked about McKinney, too, though I didn\u2019t show her the video. Sally was incensed by what I told her about the incident, and by what she heard about it on NPR. But once again, her response was to look for solutions. \u201cWe should make a law that police officers can\u2019t hurt black kids,\u201d she said. Naive? Yes. But still, I love her optimism. Someone<\/em> has to believe things can change.<\/p>\n

And now we come to marriage equality. Sally\u00a0knows that some children have two mommies or two daddies, and that families take diverse forms. \u201cI guess Caden just lives with his dad,\u201d she told me\u00a0one day after overhearing a neighbor boy talking about going out of town to visit his mother. Another neighbor boy lives with his mother and sees his father on weekends.\u00a0While every child sees their family structure as normative on some level, Sally understands that there is diversity out there, and she knows that that diversity applies to families headed by gay, lesbian, or bisexual couples as well. And here, too, her sense of justice and fairness kick in in full swing.<\/p>\n

The things Sally learns don\u2019t just go in one ear and out the other. They tend to sink in. I mentioned this anecdote earlier this week, but I\u2019ll repeat it again here. Some months ago Sally told me out of the blue that I should be a \u201cjudging person\u201d when I grow up. Confused, I asked her what she meant, and she explained as follows:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you grow up to be a judging person, you can make the other states change their laws so that boys can marry boys and girls can marry girls. Because if I grow up and find a girl I really like, I want to be able marry her without having to move to another state or something.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And now it turns out I didn\u2019t have to grow up to be \u201cjudging person\u201d after all.<\/p>\n

Of course, keeping Sally in the know with regards to the history she is living through involves explaining the objections of those critical of Black Lives Matter or the movement for marriage equality. I was only ever given a distorted view of the opposition\u2019s arguments and positions as a child, so I try not to do that with Sally. I try to earnestly and truly explain arguments on both sides of a given issue, while also explaining what I believe and why. I also try not to solicit an opinion from her unless she offers one herself. I don\u2019t want her to get the idea that when I talk about these issues with her I\u2019m after\u00a0a specific answer. I don\u2019t want to ask her to perform<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I suppose, in the end, that it\u2019s not just about making sure Sally is aware of the history taking place around her, it\u2019s also about providing her a foundation and context for the world she will grow up to inherit. I want to launch her into adulthood, someday, with a grasp on\u00a0the major debates and currents swirling around her.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I suppose, in the end, that it’s not just about making sure Sally is aware of the history taking place around her, it’s also about providing her a foundation and context for the world she will grow up to inherit. 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