Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Social Awareness: How much? How Soon? Too Much?





Lou, 2015







  1. What percentage of the children's lives are devoted to just being children? The work of childhood is largely play. Sure, there's academic instruction, but play is where the child develops their interior worlds, try out scenarios in make believe. Personally, I did not need parents taking me to demonstrations; their explanations of the civil rights explosion in the south, desegregation, their even handed treatment of people; those experiences shaped my social conscience. I hear the earnestness in your voice; how much is too much? We all are afraid; of fascism, of the virus, et al. But, these are adult problems to solve. Children need our assurance that the adults are doing what needs be done so that the children can relax and play. Full disclosure; I am a mom of four grown children and a psychoanalyst.

    1. You certainly make some good points. I think the majority of my kids lives are devoted to being children. Especially during lockdown, they've had plenty of time to develop interior worlds. These may be adult problems to solve, but I think there's also danger in waiting until someone is an adult before they know the problems exist. I also think that being involved can help kids feel a sense of control. You can look back at my post about the kids organizing their own BLM protest. That wasn't something we suggested, it's something they asked to do. With that, they took some ownership of world events, which may help them feel more secure in their place in that world. The other fact is that right now, I can't assure them that the adults are handling things. All the evidence points to that being the opposite of what's happening. I'd rather give them some truth now, than having them grow up and realizing they were lied to. But I also do agree with you in many ways. SO yeah, I don't have the answer.

    2. Berto, you point to precisely the problem; how to raise children into responsible and politically active adults without overwhelming them with the world's problems. And they are massive; war, dislocation, oppression et al. I think that each parent searches for balance. I think that truth in digestible amounts might be helpful. Geez, I recently learned that China is selling us masks made by forced labor of the Uighurs. Being socially responsible in a pandemic by wearing masks is tied to some extent with supporting religious and cultural genocide. I get overwhelmed myself. Thank you for sharing your own concerns.


    This, 100%. Drew keeps telling Pickle (and I know he'll tell Pumpkin when she's bigger) to look for a firefighter instead of a cop if he needs help and I'm like, dude, firefighters don't walk beats or hang around big festivals and county fairs. I'm worried they'll extend their fear to security guards as well, and then what will they do when they need help?

    It was easier in Japan, where the police sit in little offices all over the cities (kōban, colloquially known in English as "cop-in-a-box") mostly to help people with directions and lost-and-found and don't carry firearms (except in Tokyo, but at least in Japan firing your service weapon is basically a career-ending action) so apart from some hinkiness surrounding arrests and habeas corpus and jury trials (i.e., they don't have them; you can spend up to a month in lockup with no legal (or in our case, consular) representation and they can do almost anything they want to extract a confession from you, which will be taken as incontrovertible proof of guilt, which will guarantee a conviction) that children don't really have to worry about, he had no qualms about the police.

    We're also trying to make it clear that the goons gassing protestors are NOT, at least in Portland, city police. Pickle just calls them "bad guys."