Let The Kids Run The World...

This morning, my 7 year old Carmen told me that she couldn’t wait to be 8 because then she’d only have to wait 10 more years to vote and she really, really wants to be able to vote.  We talked a bit more about why and I said maybe the world would be better off if we let all the kids vote now and stop letting adults do it.  She asked why and I told her I thought it was pretty great when people think with their hearts instead of their heads and not enough grown ups remember to do that.  Adults forget what’s really important because they’re so busy thinking about what’s not.

In the world of social media (and blogs, of course) one is able to observe truths that aren’t always so clear in normal human interactions between friends and acquaintances.  These truths are sometimes disheartening and sometimes uplifting.  They are always enlightening.  Because I’m lazy by nature, I appreciate the online unveiling of true colors that allow me to easily pick and choose the company I keep.

I’m just a human being.  Like other human beings, I have core values that lead me through my life.  I have strong opinions abut what’s right and what’s wrong and I understand that my views are not the same as all other human beings.  Like most human beings, I tend to seek out other humans who share values that harmonize well with my own but that doesn’t mean I cast out those who don’t.  The common thread is clear:  We’re all human.

Way before social media, I still “read status updates” and “scrolled through comments” to observe interactions of the people around me.  That’s how my beliefs have been established.  Not through one book or one teacher or one source, but through varied and diverse interaction with other human beings.  So many of these lessons came to me quietly by observation.  I credit my mother – and her parents before her – for many of these lessons when I didn’t even realize I was being taught.

One day, when we lived in Baltimore, my mother came home with a young couple and their small baby.  She met the man in the building where she worked and she learned that he and his wife and baby had no place to live.  She welcomed them to our already heavily occupied home and allowed them to have some peace while they found their way.  She saw a need and she filled it without question or hesitation.  As a child, I registered that time as a lesson in how to be a good person.  Only now, as an adult, do I realize how harshly she was probably judged for that kindness.  You see, in the mid 1970s, in Baltimore, the idea of bringing a homeless black man, woman and child into a white family home just wasn’t done.  But for that family, it made all the difference and they were able to soon settle happily into their own home.

That wasn’t the first example of letting the heart lead that I had in my world, but it was perhaps the most blatant.  I’ve had demonstrations of such human kindness in front of me all my life.  My aunt spent much of her life housing and feeding adults who couldn’t have done it on their own.  My grandfather never asked a man on the street how he intended to spend the spare change he gave him, he just gave it because it felt right in HIS heart.

Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to have many terrific role models.  I’ve had teachers with whom I could discuss whatever was on my mind without judgment or correction, but sometimes with questions that made me challenge my own viewpoint.  I’ve had mentors from cultures, faiths, and societies not like my own at first glance but that proved to be identical in terms of heart and values.

How is it possible that a girl from a small Midwestern town and Catholic family could have long lasting and deep relationships with Muslims, Jews, Wiccans, Atheists, Baptists, Hindus, and so on?  Easy.  When I meet someone for the first time, I ask their name.  Because that’s all I need to know.  That’s the natural flow of human relationships.  Human relationships.  We hit it off or we don’t.  We find common threads or we don’t.  And if we have nothing in common, we move along.  That’s what I was taught – not just with words, but by example.

Honestly, I think that’s what many of us preach.  When did so many stop practicing?  In this time of easy access to a soapbox (like a blog, for example) and open forums, I’m stunned by the quick jump to Us v/s Them mentality and the ease with which hateful and mean thoughts are expressed as definitive truth.  I refuse to accept this as the world in which we reside.

So, I think Carmen’s on to something.  Lets give kids the right to vote.  And then maybe we should cut that right off sometime in their mid 20s.  Maybe what the world needs is a bunch of pure, open hearted, loving kids to lead us because we grown ups are screwing it up.

The kids are paying attention.  They may not say it out loud and we may not think they’re listening, but they are.  The other day, I came home to this poem, written by my 10 year old Josie.  So tell me, who should really be making the important decisions for this world?

Hope Valley

Down in Hope Valley, Children Dance And Play. They Dream Of Happiness And The Women Believe In Themselves. The Men Are Honored With Family And Never Try To Change This Happy Village. That Village Is Not Far, Yet Not Close. It Is Hidden Inside Of All Of Us Somewhere...

(by Josephine, age 10)