THE IMPORTANCE OF REACTION
/Last night before bed, I saw Owen fishing around in the pocket of a pair of pants he'd just worn to school. I watched as he pulled something out and placed it covertly in the palm of his hand. Curious, I asked him what it was he'd found. He hastily assured me that it was nothing, walked over to a drawer in his room, and attempted to stash it away. With growing interest, I chuckled and said, no really, what do you have? To my great surprise, he started crying, quite hysterically, and hurled himself onto the ground. He — and then I — knew that whatever was in his little hand shouldn't have been.
It turns out it was one very small blue bead, the kind you'd thread onto a pipe-cleaner or the end of a cornrow braid. It came from a counting activity in his classroom, and it was nothing special, the kind of thing that — if I'd found it in his pocket myself — I never ever would've questioned; a stupid little thing I probably would've just thrown in the trash. But he'd taken it, knowing he shouldn't have, and there we found ourselves: having a complete meltdown over an insignificant piece of plastic.
And so I faced a decision: let it go or react. I chose the latter; his conscience was too guilty and the lesson needed to be learned. I told him to get out a piece of paper and an envelope. Together we wrote a note to his teachers apologizing for taking something that wasn't his, and together we put that bead and that note into an envelope and then into his backpack. We discussed the importance of righting our wrongs, of owning up to our actions, and we made a plan about how we'd address it at school in the morning. Afterward, I emailed his teachers to warn them what was coming; I apologized for what may appear to be an overreaction, but told them it was too important a thing for me to let go.
Meanwhile, as I was decisively addressing the “theft” of a 1-cent bead, U.S. voters half a world away were busy casting their ballots. I woke up periodically throughout the night to check my phone for updates; in the early morning hours, I dreamed that one such update had announced Hillary the winner. I dreamed that I met her and hugged her and cried with happiness that Eliza would awaken in a world where “The first female U.S. President” would forevermore be an invalid answer to: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Obviously that didn’t happen. Instead, Eliza woke up in a world where we’ve decided it’s okay for men to “grab [women] by the pussy” — a thing I feel embarrassed even to type, but which is apparently completely acceptable for U.S. Presidents-Elect to say. My kids woke up citizens of a country that has decided not to react to bigotry and hate speech, overt racism and sexism and lies. I woke up to an unfamiliar, disorienting nation that today I’m deeply, deeply ashamed of.
Over breakfast, I didn’t know how to explain to my kids the seismic shift that had happened while they slept. So I didn’t. Instead, we got dressed and took the train to school. I walked Owen to class and watched him sheepishly hand over the apology note to his teachers, who graciously told him they were proud of him for being honest and doing the right thing. I saw how his little face softened and his big brown eyes lit up as they affectionately gave him a hug.
Maybe he’ll remember this as the formative moment when he learned not to steal; maybe he’ll remember it as the time when I completely and unnecessarily embarrassed him; maybe he won’t remember it at all. Whichever way it goes, I stand by my decision to react.
Because dangerous precedents can be set when you don’t.
