Kindness

The Mom of No has just returned from a multi-state road trip, the purpose of which was to deliver The College Student to her new place of residence.  I was fine until I hit the state line of my own home state, and then I had to pull over, go in the visitor center, and have a little weepy time in the restroom.  I haven't really heard from The College Student since I left her all on her own in a strange state, but I can see that she's bought pizza and Insomnia cookies. I'm therefore assuming all is well, or at least nothing has gone epically wrong.

The long drive home alone gave me some time to do some deep thinking, and one of the things I thought about was kindness.  Our local school district had a huge "Kindness Convocation" right before I left, and that was the beginning of my pondering on the subject.  Not having been involved in any way with this Kindness Convocation, I can only assume that the objective was to make students be kinder to each other.  I hope it does.  Having sat through similar events as a bullied kid, I am dubious about the long-term effectiveness, but if it brings about positive results then it was time well spent.

It has become popular to talk about kindness as the solution to all our worldly woes.  If we would just be kinder to each other, then all the other issues we're grappling with would evaporate- or at least be mitigated to a bearable level.   I think if we could all manage to be kinder to each other then it would lead to some monumental changes, because we would begin understanding how our actions or inactions truly impact other people in negative ways, and we would begin to think about our society differently- in a sense of we are all connected, instead of a "I have mine, and I only care about you as long as it doesn't require significant effort on my part" sense.

The problem is that we're expecting our youth to be kind- but we're not doing a very good job, as adults, of modeling that behavior ourselves.  It's definitely a "do as I say, but not as I do" proposition.  (Warning: Political references cometh!). A few weeks ago, I was part of a discussion thread on Facebook and the antics of The Orange Man came up.  A community leader, who shall not be named, said something to the effect of "I don't like his language, but I like what he's doing for the economy, so I'm willing to overlook that".

His language?  I think the problem goes deeper than that (if you disagree, the Mom of No is probably not the blog for you)- but apparently bullying language is actually OK as long as you are getting desirable results. When adults talk to kids about bullying; the attempted message is usually "Bullying is never OK"; but as adults, the message we send out is that some bullying is OK.  Go on almost any public Facebook page, and it's not hard to find examples of people being very unkind- and when they get called out on it; the response is essentially "you're just a fragile little snowflake, I'm just giving my opinion, and you can't handle it, so it's your problem, not mine".

As adults, we can be horrible to each other- but we expect our kids to be kind to each other. We tell kids it's more important to be kind than to be smart (although I have yet to see anything about it's more important to be kind than to be a good athlete), so be kind, don't bully, include everyone, and then we don't. The message we give out by our own actions is be kind, unless you disagree with my politics, or are of a different religion, or you don't parent the way I do, or don't speak my language, or aren't of my skin color or ethnicity, or are of a different economic status- then really, kindness is optional.

As the parent of a special needs child, I wonder just what form this kindness will take- is it going to be the sort of kindness that ends up with my child being included in activities with his typical peers, without adult facilitation?  Will it lead to that kind of peer-initiated organic inclusion that every special needs parent dreams of, or will it be more of the "kindness" I'm used to- where people are just nice enough to be "kind", but not enough so that it requires effort on their part to invite him into their circle and be a true part of his life.  Will it be kindness in a patronizing way, or kindness in an authentic way?

Recently a neighboring city was conducting a hearing about bringing in mass transit, which would be of great benefit to people with disabilities and senior citizens who no longer drive.  I received an e-mail regarding the meeting which contained excerpts of comments from people who were opposed to spending city money on mass transit: "Charities and churches should be taking care of the disabled people, it isn't our responsibility; those of us who are not disabled or old don't need it, who cares about them?".  Often, we are not a kind society- we are a selfish one.  Our kids see this.  If we really want to raise children who are kind, we need to take it further than a Kindness Convocation; we need to live it.