The Kids Are Alright

"We don't matter so much, but the children do." - Mary Oliver

I am devastated over the tragedy that took place last week in Uvalde, Texas. Children deserve a softer world, one where they can dream and have fresh air without fear. My heart is with parents and educators everywhere. everytown.org

I have never considered myself particularly good with children. Though it’s definitely gotten better as I’ve entered my 20s, I am still at odds with the virtue of patience, and I always worry that this may inhibit my capacity to be a good and caring mother to my potential future kids. Despite this, I always have a deep sense of empathy toward children. I, myself, hold tight to the fleeting pieces of wonder that come about in these dull days of new adult responsibility, and I have always taken refuge in being a little bit childish. A new era of technology pressured me to grow up a bit faster than I wanted to, and I held fast to the little things that slow it down. I look at young people now and feel a multitude of things: grief, admiration, fear — but hope, in spite of everything, still prevails.

I know we’re supposed to be the ones they look up to, but we can learn a lot from today’s children. Perhaps we can learn the most. Their fresh eyes see the world as it is, asking questions we may not usually ask ourselves, constantly in a state of wonder. They experience joy with their entire bodies, vibrating in abundance on playgrounds and beaches and backyards. My sister works with young kids at an after-school program, and she told us a story last week about how a crying child’s sorrow over a rain-ruined school project completely dissipated with an offering of two single craft gemstones. I love watching my youngest cousin move through the world with sparkling eyes, learning new things every day but still enjoying the same Starbucks croissant he has loved since he could eat solid food. A child’s sense of wonder is so deeply sacred, and for a while I worried that the pandemic would make that more difficult to preserve. I was wrong. On a London bus, my favorite seats are the two front ones on the upper deck, where windows surround you on all sides. On several occasions recently I have been accompanied in my observance by a caretaker with their small child, constantly asking questions and pointing out big trees or dogs or rainbow umbrellas. They have a natural, innate resilience that has carried them through the past two years, as they searched for the tiny beautiful things in their own homes.

by Ellen He

In the final chapter of my dissertation, I wrote about the future of post-pandemic poetry. During my research, I came across the most recent KidsPost poetry contest, in which young children were instructed to write a poem “of the pandemic”. Nearly 600 kids from across the United States submitted poems, and 10 young poets between the ages of 7 and 13 were chosen as winners, with titles like “Perseverance” and “Hope From the Ashes”. Through the tender, wonderful observance of their little realities, a young child contains the same qualities of quiet meditation, reflection, and praise that we all strive to find amongst the chaos of our ever-widened daily lives. I sat and cried reading them. My favorite is my Fiona Moats, age 7, titled “Light in the Dark”:

When the world hit the bell that dinged at danger
and the people faced massive destruction,
we knew that good things end
but so do the bad.
If you close your eyes, you can see a gap in the dark, and you
know that light is never really gone as long as you believe.
And we all have our voices and I still have
pancakes with my family on Saturday
mornings.

Small things are always inflated in childhood. A scrape on the knee feels like the end of the world, but a passing butterfly feels like the beginning of one. To the universal child, for a blissful period of time unbeknownst to them, the circumstances of the world are rooted in imagination and play. Growing up, I wasn’t aware of the things that separated me from others until they started to matter — my big teeth, my bushy eyebrows, my heart wide open. Imagine if we all loved the world as we did in elementary school — to see it matter-of-factly, raw with no complications, driven by emotion. A lot would change.

Mary Oliver writes in “Children, It’s Spring”:

to be picked by careful fingers,
young fingers, entranced
by what has happened 
to the world.

We, the older ones,
call it Spring,
and we have been through it
many times.

But there is still nothing
like the children bringing home
such happiness
in their small hands.

Yes, I think the kids are alright. But the world they live in definitely isn’t. It’s our responsibility to provide safe spaces for them to grow and flourish, in all their tenderness, despite everything. Their small hands will grow to hold the world, but for now, they pick and choose what to carry with careful purpose: caught fireflies, crayons, stuffed animals. Last week I visited the Montessori classroom of my great-aunt, who teaches 3 to 5-year-olds. I was so moved by the virtues on the walls, the paintings of flowers with wobbly stems, the tiny tables and chairs. The seeds are planted inside the classroom, but the garden needs to be tended to. We need to protect young imaginations, and I am forever indebted to the educators who protected mine, who taught me how to sing about joy in the mornings and read before bed.

Further Reading

Jason Reynolds on the Imagination and Fortitude of Children

“Good Bones” by Maggie Smith

How C’mon C’mon Asks America’s Children About the Future

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What I Enjoyed This Week

Recent Reads

• Luster by Raven Leilani. This is a sharp, gutsy, and sometimes ugly debut novel centering on a lonely young woman trying to find human connection in a big city. She is incredibly complex: bold and confident but at the same time reserved and ashamed. She is messy, confused, awkward, and inappropriate — but characters are allowed to be. There are a lot of similar books in the “young unlikeable millennial in the big city” genre, but this added an honest, diverse addition to a white-dominated subcategory. The prose was beautifully brittle. It felt too intimate at times, but that’s where its power lies. It’s definitely not for everyone. A lot of it sat with me strangely. But I think I liked it.

Other Wonderful Things

• Everything Everywhere All At Once. This was one of the best movies I’ve ever seen, hands down. It’s about so much, but for me, the takeaway was about the consistency of love, even when things feel divided. I cried a lot. Please go see it.

• I am still very happy to be home. The novelty hasn’t worn off, and I’m not sure it will. Some things I’ve loved: Sweetgreen, reading in our sunroom, watching the Game Show Network with my family, Jeni’s ice cream, wearing dresses.

• This song, this song, this song.

Thanks for reading.

<3

Tara