No wonder the West is dying, raising children like young trees with their roots all severed:
At
breakfast, in the glass-towered city of Vancouver, five-year-old Abigail looks
glumly at her half-eaten bowl of cereal.
"What is it, honey?" I brush the bangs back from her face.
She lets out a big sigh. "I wish I wasn't white."
I start. Nothing in the parenting manuals has prepared me for that.
"All we've ever done is hurt people," she continues. "I wish my skin was dark and that I had a culture."
We live in a part of the city where immigrant families abound. Our neighbours are homesick, first-generation Mexicans, which means that salsas and pinatas and Aztec legends feature prominently at shared social gatherings. Our family regularly eats in Little India where we gush over the flavours of curry and dhal, and every February, we attend the Chinese New Year parade in the slanting rain. Plus, my husband and I are children of missionaries and harbour an acute guilt for the cultural imperialism of our forebears. To compensate, we've raised our children with a deep appreciation of non-Western cultures.
So when Abigail laments the colour of her white skin, part of me is programmed to protest. Is it not my moral obligation to tell her that her feelings of poor self-worth are nothing compared with the psychological ruin of real racism? Girl, everything about Canadian culture weighs in your advantage and you have no right to snivel!
Instead, I feel a sadness settle over me. We thought we were raising the enlightened child of the 21st century. We thought we were doing our part in setting the history record straight. Yet, in doing so, it seems we have robbed our oldest child of something primal to psychological health, something elemental to her well-being as a human being: cultural roots.
"What is it, honey?" I brush the bangs back from her face.
She lets out a big sigh. "I wish I wasn't white."
I start. Nothing in the parenting manuals has prepared me for that.
"All we've ever done is hurt people," she continues. "I wish my skin was dark and that I had a culture."
We live in a part of the city where immigrant families abound. Our neighbours are homesick, first-generation Mexicans, which means that salsas and pinatas and Aztec legends feature prominently at shared social gatherings. Our family regularly eats in Little India where we gush over the flavours of curry and dhal, and every February, we attend the Chinese New Year parade in the slanting rain. Plus, my husband and I are children of missionaries and harbour an acute guilt for the cultural imperialism of our forebears. To compensate, we've raised our children with a deep appreciation of non-Western cultures.
So when Abigail laments the colour of her white skin, part of me is programmed to protest. Is it not my moral obligation to tell her that her feelings of poor self-worth are nothing compared with the psychological ruin of real racism? Girl, everything about Canadian culture weighs in your advantage and you have no right to snivel!
Instead, I feel a sadness settle over me. We thought we were raising the enlightened child of the 21st century. We thought we were doing our part in setting the history record straight. Yet, in doing so, it seems we have robbed our oldest child of something primal to psychological health, something elemental to her well-being as a human being: cultural roots.
And it's not going to end
well just because you teach them about tea time. The word "fundamentalist" stems from those
who go back to the basics of the religion, back to the fundamentals. It is time
for us to become cultural fundamentalists, and our roots are Christianity, the
Greco-Roman legacy, and the European nations.
The alternative is this societal suicide in the name of not being called racist. Of all the reasons for a society to die off, this simply must be the most utterly stupid ever witnessed on this planet.
The alternative is this societal suicide in the name of not being called racist. Of all the reasons for a society to die off, this simply must be the most utterly stupid ever witnessed on this planet.