[su_label type=”info”]Column: The Devil’s Advocate[/su_label]
How early should children be introduced to the big subjects? Religion? Politics? Sex?
Two of my children are now teachers in the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD). Although one of them has taught special education at the high school level, both of them also teach (and prefer it) elementary, kindergarten and first grade.
Through them, sometimes I hear stories about their students that are extremely surprising, even alarming, stories that, in a rather ominous way, reflect what is going on in society today, beginning with what is taking place at home.
Many of those stories are not pretty. Of course, they not only reflect what is going on with the behavior of the adults in the respective households, but also reflect what the children are exposed to, such as television, the internet, movies. Or not exposed to, such as reading, or games that do not involve technology, or even organized physical activities, or storytelling (the arts in general)—the list could be long.
My brief observations will be colored by the fact that I grew up in Chile, in the late ‘40s and mid-‘50s. They were more peaceful times, almost bucolic in comparison to the mad rush of today.
I grew up without television, or internet. My babysitters were the radio… and books. I was lucky.
Years later when I took a class in the history of radio theater, I learned that it was called “the theater of the mind.” In Chile and all over the world, families gathered around the radio and that apparatus became their center.
That, sadly, is long gone. The images that are beamed into our houses via television, or the so-called “smart phones,” have made listening to the radio almost obsolete. The same has happened with newspapers. I am some kind of reading dinosaur: I read the paper daily, a ritual that I have followed many years.
I love reading. Since I was a two years old, I constantly pestered Nana Yolita to read for me. So she tells now, since I am lucky (the world is lucky!) that Yolita, my second mother, is still among the living.
Finally, when I had just turned four years old, she said: “Carlitos! I can’t do my work if I’m always reading to you! I will teach you to read!” And she did.
I entered the world of books with pleasure. I read all kinds of subjects, but I learned to love Greek mythology and adventures in general. Maybe because my favorite collection was one that included 12 books with a green-colored leather cover, written in the 1920’s by the Brazilian Monteiro Lobato.
It was called “El Benteveo Amarillo” (The Yellow Bird), a collection of adventures that happened to a very alternative family household in Brazil.
How alternative? Try this: it included the adventurous head of household, grandmother Benita, who was helped in her tasks by Anastacia, a Black woman full of common and uncommon knowledge.
Then, there was Naricita (Little Perky Nose), Benita’s granddaughter, Perucho, a boy who was Naricita’s cousin. Both kids were about 11.
Add to the mix a talking doll called Emilia, a very impertinent and harsh character. (Today, Emilia would be called “politically incorrect”) Emilia did not just say “momma”: she was capable of carrying full conversations and arguments, like the best lawyer.
The family lived in “El Benteveo Amarillo,” an old, but comfortable big house in the countryside of Brazil, surrounded by magical streams, mountains and amazing characters, human or not, very capable of inter-species communication.
To top it all, they were aided by the inhalations of the magical dust called “Perlimpimpím Powder,” which Doña Benita kept in a not-so-secret box. Benita and her grandchildren could transport themselves back in time, to ancient Greece, where they interacted with famous people (such as Pericles, or Phidias, the architect, and mythological heroes, such a Hercules), or would go up in space, fly to the moon, or even slide down the rings of Saturn.
But those early books did not teach me about sex, religion, or politics. Sexual education was not a primary subject in our early childhood. As a kid, I learned more from watching dogs, chickens and horses than I ever learned from humans. Although they were rather raw and unguided lessons, they served as an eye-opening preamble.
How early should children be engaged in conversation about the big subjects?
I believe that it is not an exact science, but it is clear that “our crazy little ones” (as the singer Juan Manuel Serrat calls them) are capable of understanding and being affected much more than we generally give them credit for.
Just a week ago, one of my granddaughters, who is seven years old, told her mom: “Mami: this girl said in class that God made her! I said ‘Aha! Not me! My mother made me!’”
As adults, what should we do? Avoid difficult conversations and/or leave them up to the school system and their underpaid and disrespected professionals?
I am of the opinion that we should engage with our kids. If we neglect to understand that children are eager sponges and leave them to be taught by “the technical babysitters,” abandoning or neglecting our duties as parents, grandparents or teachers, leaving the children’s education entirely to the teachers of our struggling educational system, we are not being responsible…and we are missing out in the magical process of interacting with those who represent our future.