Poosey Digest: They all count

Let’s be honest: some of us count and some of us don’t.

When the Illinois legislature voted down an anti-bullying bill because a handful of conservative lawmakers don’t want the schools to be forced to give instruction on understanding kids who are different, that’s a shame …and a shame that those kids don’t count.  When a presidential candidate is accused of holding a student to the ground and cutting his hair, that’s pretty sordid, even if the candidate describes such incidents as “hijinks and pranks.” The boy had his dyed hair draped over one eye. Maybe he deserved to be left lying on the ground, crying. He just didn’t count.

Yep, we all do stupid things and I’m glad that video and YouTube weren’t around when I was growing up, but many of us mature to regret the indiscretions of our youth. Unfortunately, many of us who don’t, do go on to raise children of their own, and that’s where the disease becomes cancerous. Senator Robert Byrd was once affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan, but over the years a bit of repentance crept into his oratory. Perhaps it’s not so much a matter of what we do, but how we learn to apologize.

Sadly, it comes down to this: Some children are taught that there are people who count and those who do not. Most attempts to pass laws against bullying will fail to be effective since they focus on what we do instead of what we feel. No, you should not shove the girl with thick glasses into the wall or towel-whip the non-athletic boy in the shower. You can make rules against that, but how do we cure ourselves of the hateful notion that some people just don’t count as much as others?

Bullying is widespread. We all know people in our club, our church, and our community who count a great deal. They win the prizes, they make the headlines, they get noticed when they walk into a room. They count. And of course there are an equal number who don’t count and don’t deserve to since it’s their fault, right? If they’d only try harder they could be educated, pretty, athletic, taller, whiter or more talented. 

Nations can be bullies. When oil rich countries are ripped apart by civil war we intervene in the cause of humanitarianism. When a country with no natural resources suffers genocide, we tell ourselves that we should take care of our own first. Some nations count, some don’t.

Then bullying must be a part of our nature and we’re stuck with the plague, right? Not in some folks’ minds. A friend of mine took a trip to New Orleans with his wife and two young sons. For the first time in their Midwestern lives the boys saw beggars on the streets. In fact, every morning when the family left their hotel they had to walk through an unwashed gauntlet of panhandlers and sidewalk residents who were asking for money. My friend said that it bothered his young sons a great deal. It was their first experience with people who just don’t seem to count in society. When the family got home from their trip, Daddy signed up all four of them to volunteer at their town’s soup kitchen. He wanted them to know there was a way to make everyone count.  I realize that this one simple act alone may not have changed the boys’ outlook forever, but I can vouch for the fact that both boys are now young men with a huge heart for less noticed among us. It took no legislation or presidential announcement to teach them that we all count.

It’s Mom, it’s Dad, it’s Uncle John, it’s Grandma who teach us that everyone counts for something. I’ve yet to see a toddler born with a natural fear of others based on their color, their social standing, or their choice of lifestyle. In the words of Oscar Hammerstein in South Pacific:

“You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear, you’ve got to be taught from year to year. It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear. You’ve got to be carefully taught. You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late, before you are six or seven or eight, to hate all the people your relatives hate. You’ve got to be carefully taught.”

The current uproar over bullying isn’t a mini skirt, haircut, or any other sort of passing fad that will fade out of the news as soon as the new is worn off. It’s an epidemic that’s very much a part of who many people are. Let’s not deceive ourselves. We shall indeed be judged by how we treat the “least of us,” and our attitudes towards those different from us start right in the lap of mommy and daddy. Children who are raised to show kindness grow up to become kind people. The others…well, they don’t.

You ever ’round Poosey, stop by. We may not answer the door but you’ll enjoy the trip.