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Careful The Things You Say

Children Will Listen

I borrowed the title for this week's blog from the Sondheim musical Into the Woods. This particular song, "Children Will Listen," is a cautionary tale sung to the elders about the impact their words and values have on the younger generation, and how sometimes those words and values can come back "and turn against you."

Theatre is such a powerful force when it comes to examining the world, and its immediacy legitimizes the forcefulness of confronting humanity up close and personal. I was reminded of that this week during a performance by my acting class. They were sharing their semester's work with an audience gathered to see a ten-minute play festival centered on Christmas themes. There was to be a warning about the adult content in the showcase, which performed first, but the warning never materialized. Some adult themes and language were part of the showcase, but it was comparable with that seen in PG-13 rated films. After the third of five pieces there was a noticeable disruption in the audience when a woman and two teenage girls huffed out after a scene from Angels in America in which a Mormon wife confronts her closeted husband by asking him if he's "...a homo." The patron complained that she was "embarrassed" and upset by what she saw, and what she had exposed the children to, and the artistic director got an earful the following day. Now, I can understand not having all the information, and being surprised about hearing something you weren't expecting, however, considering those children. I would argue that a stronger message was sent by their sudden, vehement removal over the confrontation of gay identity inherent in the scene, namely that homosexuality is so abhorrent we can't even have a rational discussion about it. What could have been an intentional teaching moment about the themes likely became an unintentional lesson in bigotry.

Messages our children are receiving may significantly diverge from what we think we are conveying. Years ago, I read an autobiography of a very devout evangelical Christian who discovered how harmful the strict adherence to, and impassioned repetition of, her religious dogma had been to her gay son. In attempting to teach the philosophical underpinnings of a religion she loved, her son was dehumanized and alienated from her affection. Instead of experiencing God's love, the son, unbeknownst to the mother, felt only God's condemnation. Even though the rest of his family eventually came to terms with his homosexuality, the mother remained steadfast in her rejection, congratulating herself for adhering to her values, reassuring herself that it was God's will and that her son would hear her message and be diverted from his "wrong" path back onto the "right" one f she continued to hold out. Having shunned him so successfully, she had no idea if her plan was working, and then she received news that her son had committed suicide. In the aftermath of his death, she reached out to the gay community in an attempt to understand her son's "illness" and how that "disease" could have caused her son to take his own life. What she discovers instead is herself to be a bigot and a bully. As she meets and begins to really listen to gay people she comes to the realization that the messages she delivered intentionally and otherwise made it impossible for her son to see himself as valuable and worthwhile. Even though some in his life had accepted him, to not be accepted by the one person who should most have extended the unconditional love of the Christ she lionized was too painful for her son to endure.

While this example may be extreme, it does demonstrate that our children receive messages about their worth, and the worth of others, from us far more frequently than we are aware, and that the messages they hear may differ from what we intend. I'm not just talking about obvious negative messaging, comments that are meant to be racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise discriminatory. These shape the attitudes and biases of the children who experience them profoundly, and when children are raised in homes that support those views, then attend churches, schools, and community events that compound them the outcome is fairly obvious. I'm referring to messages that are more subtle yet equally pernicious. The messages that are less obvious have the potential to penetrate a young person's mind with even greater force BECAUSE they are less overt.

When girls hear the men in their lives whom they respect talk about women only in terms of their physical attractiveness, or sexuality, their concept of self-worth is deeply affected. That message is compounded if women are demonized for having brains, jobs, or opinions. When pornography is easily accessible in the home, and women are spoken about in only sexual terms, it is made clear that female social capital is limited to that realm, a realm that is small, unfulfilling, and with a short expiration date. Strengthening those messages are the attitudes and comments surrounding domestic violence and sexual assault. Children are exposed to adults' victim-blaming comments at a horrifying rate, and when they take in questions about why abused women don't "just leave" or why a rape victim was wearing what she was wearing or drinking what she was drinking, etc. we are setting them up to blame themselves if they are ever in similar circumstances, and make no mistake, despite your best efforts, they could be.

Beyond making our children less empathetic to people who are different than they are, or judgemental of (and biased against) folks whose values don't match up to the ones they are conditioned to in their homes, our unintentional messaging has major negative consequences on their self-concepts. Young people get enough push back when they transgress the norms of their social groups, and the often harmful consequences of social media on their self-worth is so well-documented, they don't need us adding to the stockpile of their real and imagined shortcomings. When we make comments that indicate disgust over sexuality and gender identity that fall outside the narrow limits of the dominant culture binary, when we suggest whole groups of people are inferior, when we fat shame, or feminist bash, or victim blame we are sending messages that may do real harm in terms of contributing to the internalization of that disgust, inferiority, and shame. Because we don't yet know the full scope of their identity, we may be setting them up for self-loathing and self-destructive behaviors and choices when who they are, or who they love, doesn't align with the narrow parameters we've imposed on them.

It takes bravery to talk to young people in a way that reinforces our values AND gives room to acknowledge the legitimacy of people and approaches to life that veer from those values. It takes self-awareness and courage to reject the entitled way of thinking that allows us to feel superior to those who don't look and act like us. When we refuse to invite in the specter of self-hatred by truly reflecting acceptance to our children (of them specifically, and others generally), we give them a fighting chance at self-respect even if their lives don't end up looking exactly like ours. Beyond that, we open them, and ourselves, up to a rich, dynamic, positive relationship to goodness over mere niceness.

"Careful the things you say
Children will listen
Careful the things you do
Children will see and learn
Children may not obey, but children will listen
Children will look to you for which way to turn

To learn what to be
Careful before you say "Listen to me"
Children will listen."