I work with children—children ages 6 months to 5 years, children of all different backgrounds and skin tones. Sometimes, they fight. This one stole that one’s toy, that one stepped on this one’s foot, that one was talking while this one was trying to speak. The conflict resolution is always the same. We pull aside the instigator (and often, it is both children who instigate). We figure out what happened. We make sure one understands that the other’s feelings were hurt. And we talk together about what to do so that we are able to not hurt feelings the next time someone gets upset. We always apologize. The kids smile, they wipe their tears, and often, they’re right back to playing with each other as though nothing happened.
As witnesses, as educators, as people who are older and wiser and more socialized, my co-workers and I have the ability, the advantage, the privilege even, to be able to explain with absolute authority what went wrong. We can explain how to fix it for next time. The real world is not that simple. We don’t have that same perch of experience to look down on. We forget the malleability that we have as children. We are stubborn, stuck in our tracks, convinced that the other is wrong. We refuse empathy. We refuse sympathy. We see nothing but our own feelings. We refuse to apologize.
We are not dealing with the problems of children. I wish we were. I wish I could take little Dallas, little Minnesota, and little Baton Rouge by their little hands, kiss their boo-boos, and sing them songs until they forget their troubles. I’d love nothing more than to make them laugh again, to put this mess that makes me so uncomfortable and so afraid aside. It’s not that simple, and it will never be.
Still, maybe we can try. It begins with empathy. Listen to why Black Lives Matter. Listen to why Blue Lives Matter. Open your hearts to people, ordinary people, behind uniforms and skin color. When we understand, we can solve. Enough with the anger. Enough with the hate. At the end of the day, we want the same things—to be able to come home to our children each night. When your heart hurts, speak calmly. Speak kindly. Speak with love. Become children, the ones who have the capability, the understanding, the plasticity to feel so intensely for the well-being of others, even as their own hearts bleed. These are not the problems of children, but we could take a page out of their book. Empathy, above all. That's the only way we'll see any sort of closure.
