As I sit watching my six- through 12-year-old campers play on the playground, I so badly wish I could go back to the days where my biggest worry was how many monkey bars I would make it across. I watch as one of my little girls helps to push her friend on the swing. She is black and he is white. A detail that one would think wouldn't matter. And it doesn't matter, at least not to them. On the other side of the playground, I watch as a boy who is not a part of our camp joins in a game of tag with some of my campers who have Autism. This clearly doesn't matter to him. As I watch these interactions, I think about how I want to be six years old again and totally unaware of the hate that exists in this world. Even better, I want to be totally unaware of what I have to fear.
These kids don't know that they may not be safe on the playground. Because at any moment someone could open fire on us with an assault rifle. Or even worse, at our camp back at our school, in our classroom. These kids don't know that politicians are fighting about where they're allowed to go to the bathroom after lunch. They don't know that up the street a police officer might kill an innocent man or vise versa, causing riots in the streets. But if these children did know, and did understand, would they even care?
See, at the playground, kids interact with each other no matter what the color of their skin is. They take turns on the swings and the slide because that is the polite thing to do. They play pretend games with one another regardless of disabilities, because they don't mind if someone is a little different than they are. They don't worry about the genitals of the person going potty in the stall next to them because going potty is a private matter. See, when kids go to the bathroom, they're not concerned about the private parts of the person in the stall next to them, because that would kind of make them a weirdo. They go into the bathroom, they do their business and they leave. And the only problem they have is forgetting to wash their hands.
I don't want my future children to grow up in a world where the playground is no longer a place where everyone coexists. I fear that they will. I fear that we are creating a world where differences and disagreements mean violence. That isn't what we would teach our children. That isn't the way my campers would solve their problems.
Stop for a moment. Take a walk to your local playground. Have a seat on the bench and watch. We all could learn a little something from the way children interact in this world. Because let me tell you, they just might have it figured out.
