I just read my children the book Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson. Beautifully illustrated, the story revolves around a new girl, Maya, and narrator Chloe who spurns her attempts at friendship, looking away from Maya's smiles, rejecting her offers to share toys and sneering at her raggedly clothes. After a school lesson describing how acts of kindness ripple through the world like a stone in water, Chloe reconsiders her behavior towards Maya. It is not your typical children's book, which would end happily with Chloe changing and becoming best friends with Maya. Instead, she learns that Maya has moved away. She thinks of all the things she could have done to be kind to Maya and how that chance is now gone. I barely got through reading the book without crying.
Kindness is under attack. I do not mean that the world is a dangerous place - violent crime is way down. But some people subscribe to a culture of selfishness that values greed and disregard for others. People concerned more about hoarding their own wealth than improving the lives of others or the state of our dangerously sick planet. Supposed leaders use complete lies to invoke racial hatred and fear. Proponents of such smallmindedness have a talent for disregarding reality. We need to stop pretending that good fortune is based purely on merit and that if we ignore the world's problems they will disappear. We need to acknowledge that what we have, we have largely through luck.
I am extremely lucky. I was born into a stable, middle-class family with parents who encouraged education and allowed me to graduate from college debt-free. My parents are also lucky. My dad's mother was an intelligent woman from a coal-mining family who, while forced to quit school herself, encouraged her son to excel and attend college. There he met my mother who in turn encouraged him to continue his studies and get a PhD. My mother was lucky. Her immigrant parents provided a stable home-life. Her mother knew the value of education and got a university administrative job that helped all four of her children, starting with my mother, graduate college and become highly successful. My grandmother was lucky. Her parents escaped fascist dictatorship in Italy and came to a country whose language she did not know, but that offered opportunity. She survived ethnic prejudice and the poverty of the great depression to raise a family during one of the most prosperous periods of American history, when her husband's blue-collar salary could finance building a house on the same street where her family lived.
If we're American, we are lucky. If we have parents that love us and support us, we are lucky. If we have the extreme fortune to not worry about food or money, we are very lucky. No one is an island. We are all on this planet together - until inevitable environmental collapse compels us to colonize other planets anyway. And each thing we do, affects everyone else - like the wings of a butterfly or the ripples of a stone in a pond. We need to acknowledge this interdependence. The culture of gratitude isn't just a sweet idea. It is a reality we need to accept if we want a peaceful world.
Teaching kindness to my children is not just important to me. It is the biggest reason I had children in the first place. I believe my key role as a parent is to raise these small beings to improve the well-being of others and the planet. The reason I have always insisted my children clean up after themselves is that I do not want them to grow up thinking someone else will take care of their mess. The reason I believe in the importance of sharing despite the sad trend of parents disparaging it is that I want my children to understand human interdependence. Not an easy concept, since everyone enters this world as self-centered beings coming from a blissful existence where their every need is met. I believe our business as parents is to teach these tiny tyrants that the world does not revolve around them. With two boundary-pushers like mine, such lessons take time.
Willa is one tough cookie who, while rarely resorting to physical violence, will shout "Don't ever do that to me again!" if someone crosses her and will often accompany this statement with her signature death stare. I like that she is able to set boundaries and use her words, but she is not always the friendliest or most forgiving child. However, she also has a crazy amount of empathy for a two-year-old. For instance, if I ever tell her that someone is sick, she'll remember and days later say, "I hope Grandpa is feeling better." When her father sadly remarked that a tree usually full of singing birds had been cut down on our street, she said, "Where will all the birdies go?" Empathy comes naturally to her, despite her tough demeanor. When I remarked on her combination of strength and empathy to my father, he paid me one of best compliments I've ever received. He said she got that from her mother.
As a first child, Nate had an extended period of world domination. After two years of having me all to himself, it naturally took time adjusting to the presence of a small, demanding sibling. Like many first children, Nate enjoys routine and fears change. This can lead to problems. Like the time he had "saved" his lego building in our playroom before some friends came over and they dismantled it in order to build their own impressive tower. So he knocked theirs down several times until he received a time-out and stern talking to. While he can be rough and wild, Nate is also a deep thinker with a big heart. He remembers the favorite animal of a random classmate and, when he sees it at the zoo, suggests we take a picture to show her and make her happy. He still looks around the neighborhood for the butterflies they raised and released in school. His relationship with his sister, while including the normal sibling squabbling, has blossomed to a point where he leads her on adventures through the playground and will randomly say with such genuine sweetness "I love you, Willa bean."
After we read Each Kindness, we discussed it. I suggested Nate and I go through the book and think of things Chloe could have done throughout the story to be kind. He drew pictures to illustrate his ideas of kindness. She could have smiled back and said hi. She could have played a game of jacks with Maya. She could have told Maya she looked beautiful when she showed up in a pretty, second-hand dress. The point of the story clearly stuck with Nate.
I will continue to talk about kindness and gratitude every day with my kids. Because I don't just want to make this world a better place for my children. I want my children to make this place a better world.