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HAITI SHOULD HELP US TEACH OUR CHILDREN
Published On 01-23-2010 , 10:32 PM
AS a kid growing up during World War II, I didn't understand my mother's constant commentary about the hungry children in Europe. Fact is, I didn't really understand anything about Europe and the battles being waged there. And hungry children were as foreign, to me, as the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
My sister and I both thought we were clever when we suggested our crust of bread we were leaving on our plate be boxed and mailed overseas.
Back in 1943, there were no television crews continually sending images of bombed cities, crumbling buildings or starving children. As I saw it, starving children was just a mechanism my mother thought might work to help us see how God had smiled on our household by providing food.
We said the same blessing before every meal: "Lord, we thank you for this food, in Jesus' name, amen." And every adult at the table - paternal grandmother, father and mother - didn't let us leave the table without our plates being clean.
Were my mother's children thankful for their food? Did they care about the children in Europe?
Are today's young people having it easier when it comes to understanding the plight of hungry children in Haiti? Why not? After all, they've got constant news coverage of the earthquake disaster.
Are today's young people feeling the pain of the injured and orphaned wandering the streets without anyone to provide care?
As parents, we have a responsibility to help our children begin to understand what they're seeing and hearing on television. We need to emphasize how the whining we hear from them in no way measures up to the plight of the children in Haiti.
While American parents are battling with funky teenage sons to take a shower, teenage boys in Haiti haven't had one in over a week and showers are probably not in the works anytime soon.
While American daughters can't wear their purple sweater because they don't have any shoes to match, Haitian daughters wear what's on their back because that's all they've got.
Now is the time, if ever there was one, for all of us to realize how truly blessed we are. If we look at this continuous news coverage for more than the images and the on-the-spot reporting, there are plenty of important life lessons coming at us across the air waves.
We will dig into our pockets and encourage our children to shake some coins from their piggybanks to send a family donation, large or small, to one of many Haiti relief funds and then say to ourselves, "We've done our part."
Maybe we've been given a unique opportunity to correct the indulgences we've ushered in as a way of life - no matter high income or low income. Is this tragedy a wake-up call for the rest of us?
How many parents will take to heart what nonsense it is for their daughter to want more shoes, when the kids in Haiti are losing their feet?
How to raise grateful American children who understand they are blessed? I don't believe, even though our children have visual images of the suffering, that the lesson is going to be learned any better than what my mother's speech about the children in Europe accomplished.
My sister and I thought making a donation of bread crust was a smart retort. I suspect today's children will think pretty much the same.
If only there were the opportunities to round up our nation's ungrateful young'uns and airlift them to Haiti and for each one we drop, we bring back a Haitian youngster. Don't suggest what I wouldn't be willing to do myself? You're right! But my 18-year-old would be the first kid on the American helicopter.
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Comment
| | 1. | "Now is the time, if ever there was one, for all of us to realize how truly blessed we are. If we look at this continuous news coverage for more than the images and the on-the-spot reporting, there are plenty of important life lessons coming at us across the air waves."
Will we learn from this tragedy? We hope so. But, we wonder....
Hank
- by hank wilfong, 01-24-2010, 7:27 AM
| | 2. | great blog! I've already shared it with
some friends in Memphis who had just
emailed me a prayer for Haiti..
Yours is SO on target...just enough to
get folks thinking but not TOO much to
fill their minds to overflowing on the
lessons to be learned...even noticed
please! Your wording flows in the
most delightful yet meaningful rhythms
allowing the "melody of the tune" to be
mentally repeated %28hummed%29 as in
RE-THINKING it...absorbing it.
- by Jeanette, 01-23-2010, 11:22 PM
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