I realized that children are very innocent and the purest of hearts. However, the mind of a child is like a sponge; they learn and imbibe the attitudes shown by the adults in their lives. They are so loving and so forgiving by default but at some point, the influence of the adults in their lives rub off on them and they begin to exude the character of their parents or guardians like a reflection of a mirror. How else do you explain to me the experience of a friend who had gone to pick up his child from Sunday school only for another kid to say “eww, black”. What does that even mean?
The part I find most disturbing is not the fact that it took place in church, the part that got me deeply concerned me is the fact that the kid’s mother was there when the incident happened and said or did nothing. She did not rebuke her child, neither did she apologize for her kid’s behavior. Granted that the mother may not be racist but her inability to address the situation on that spot makes her complicit. It is also a reflection of some of the attitude that her kid has learned from her. No child is born racist but your actions and inactions can lead to you raising a racist child. It is not fair to transfer or implant your hatred or insensitivity about other races into a child. That is a theft of that child’s innocence. Stop it.
Let us train our children to love and respect others regardless of the color of their skins. I tell my children that God made us all in different shades just like the rainbow that has many colors but when we look at the rainbow, it is so beautiful. So together, we all make the world beautiful. We as parent have to be deliberate in teaching good values about our humanity to the young ones. I will not teach my children to pay evil for evil. Many people teach their children evil merely by their silence. The woman in that story reinforced something in the mind of her child that day that it was okay to see a black person as “eww”. Whatever, that means. You inaction is as potent as your negative actions, so don’t pretend to sit on the fence on this one.
Many a times, my children come back from daycare and say to me “mommy, nobody wants to play with me”. I ignored it when my five year old son said this a few times because you know ‘boys will always be boys’. However, I started taking it seriously when my sweetest, angelic four-year old daughter, who could possibly never hurt a fly said that same statement a couple of times “mommy, nobody would play with me”. My heart broke that day. When we have parents who subconsciously train their kids to avoid black kids or create the impression that a particular race is superior than other other, then we have a big problem at hand . I have seen instances where we go to a public play ground and then the white parent kind of nudges off their kids away from the area where a black kid is. This was pre-COVID-19 era for avoidance of doubt.
Adults, please keep your political views, your hatred and bigotry to yourself. Please don’t infuse it into your little kids. Let children be children and lets make conscious efforts to preserve their innocence and teach them to love others and treat others with kindness and respect. That way, you are actually contributing something useful to humanity by holding your fair share of parental bargain. Then, the world would be a better place.
“An eye for an eye makes the world blind.” – Mahatma Gandhi