Yay or Nay?
By raincoaster
From Can’t See the Forest.
I just can’t leave this picture alone. It’s a heavy issue, for a mommyblog. But I think we can handle it, we can handle the essential quandary here.
That quandary is this:
On the one hand, unless one is a member of the tyrannical Burmese junta, it is really very hard if not impossible to argue with the sentiment of this kid’s sign. He is adorable, and he is peacefully exercising his freedom of speech, and he is surely on the side of the angels, and he is dressed mighty fierce just for bonus points. And as a former protesty flowerchild myself, I heart him and recognize him as one of My People.
However…
How much of his being there was his idea? No way did that child write that sign. Whenever I see very young children at protests, I worry that maybe they’re there because Mommy and Daddy said that is what the family is doing today, so get with it. I worry that maybe they don’t really understand the issues, or if they do, they are going along to please the parents, because that is what kids do. You know the kids kick up a fuss when it’s time to go to the mall, but they go anyway. And so with the protest. Kids are not allowed to vote. At what point are they assumed to be speaking their mind freely, without parental interference? To me, it seems like that would be … at the same age at which they can vote. And maybe that’s set too old, but that’s a whole ‘nother question.
Now, babies don’t worry me; they sleep through most of it anyway, and if you jam a “Lyndon Larouche/Ralph Nader for President” tee on someone who can’t even read, it isn’t going to bruise their delicate psyches. Nobody is going to think the baby looked up from its playpen and suggested doing up some signs and picketing the Vainglorian embassy over their mangling of the Malevolencian national anthem.
I guess my question is, how do you know when a kid is freely expressing himself politically and when s/he is being used for a cheap photo op? Because, make no mistake, that is why politicians kiss babies (and why do you think people bring them in the first place?).
I want this kid to mean this sign. But I don’t even know if he can read this sign. How do you know when to cheer and when to squint and point out the flim-flam?
No answers today. Only questions.
October 2nd, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Raincoaster, I would think that being from BC you would know plenty of kids who care about causes. I’ve known many super-sensitive kids who find it so heartbreaking when they hear about people/animals/the planet suffering that *they* are the ones that bring awareness home to mom and dad and ask what they can do to help. Even if he’s too young to have made the sign, he’s not too young to have a heart and to have a sense of obligation in the face of injustice.
October 2nd, 2007 at 3:21 pm
That’s a problem I’ve often pondered, myself.
That said, voting age is too high to set the bar. At twelve I chose of my own free will to picket a local movie theater for eliminating student rate tickets thus obliging me to pay full adult price. At fourteen I started marching regularly in nuclear freeze walkathons because the arms race scared the ever-loving, blue-eyed crap out of me and not because of my parents’ views on the subject. I quickly discovered they agreed with me and that wasn’t a suprise, but I’d already signed up before I asked them what they thought of it.
That said, I’m highly suspicious of any political act on the part of a child under the age of ten. I only really start trusting that they’re probably acting out of their own personal views after they hit about twelve or so, and I’m still mighty surprised when I see someone that young carrying a picket sign or wearing a shirt with a political message. I’m more trusting of it when the issue is one the child is directly affected by than when it’s a national issue that may or may not make a difference in that childs’ life.
Like you, I have few hard and fast views on the subject. So much depends on the maturity, social awareness, and mental independance of the particular child that it’s nearly impossible to tell when a young child really does hold a point of political view and when it’s being exploited by parents or organizers to win hearts and minds.
All I can tell you is that I was eleven when I was glued to the radio and television for more details on the Watergate scandal, and I’ve been an actively political creature ever since.
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:53 pm
Um, I’m MUCH more worried that the parents put their little boy (are you sure??) in a teenage girl’s halter top and let him in public. Looking back on this photo, our tiny dude may be a little more scarred by the stylin’ top than the ole’ monk support.
October 2nd, 2007 at 11:01 pm
bobbie-sue, BC doesn’t have a lock on political engagement. I was a passionately political kid growing up, and have many memories of sulking at home because my parents wouldn’t take me to the latest protest because they were afraid of the hippies. There are politically engaged kids everywhere; the longer I’m on Earth, the more I know that kids are fundamentally moral, active people. When I went door to door for Greenpeace, it was the kids who generally thought the cause was cool, regardless of what their parents said. Kids do care.
My question is just, how do you tell the ones who are using their freedom of expression from the ones who are there as the opposite of that?
Twistie, we are as of one mind. I, personally, think the voting age is set as high as it is partly to disenfranchise people who are in most cases more passionately political than they will be later in life, to defuse the risk of substantial change. And I even think this when I’m not wearing my tinfoil helmet. I agree that younger kids can and do speak out of their own volition, and on reconsidering maybe it’s “the age at which a child can tell its parents what it’s doing that day and get itself around” that I should draw the line. If a kid is old enough to say, “Mom, I’m going to picket the embassy with Sue, I’ll use my buspass” then you can be pretty sure the kid is acting on its own.
thepinkeminence, maybe they dress that way in India? I do like the “peace paint”.
October 3rd, 2007 at 12:40 am
It is difficult to tell, for children are often used as political pawns, as you have stated. “Let’s do it for the children!”is a popular rallying cry, and not many will say, “Forget the children!” As illogical as the cry may be, it just looks bad to disagree.
I think from a very young age, children can be politically and morally engaged, it all depends on the influences around them.
Tough question indeed.
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:29 am
I really feel like children this young are just being used as props. However well-meaning their parents are, it makes me say, “nay”. I think that starting around age 10, children can become informed about what is happening in the world and begin to get engaged, but prior to that, they are probably parroting mom and dad. Especially these days, in a media saturated environment, I feel like I have an obligation to protect my son from the public eye, not put him in it. But, hey, that’s just me.
October 3rd, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Are we sure this is a little boy to begin with? He seems to be wearing nail polish, aside from the halter top.
That aside it is not only exploitative to take a child this young to a protest, its bloody dangerous as well. The junta is trigger happy and this child could be in the line of fire. The parents should forget the photo-op and get him or her some place safe.
October 3rd, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Parents should take kids to political demonstrations or protests if they want kids to know that it is important to stand up for what you believe in. If you believe that killing Buddhist monks is worth speaking out about, then by all means, go, and take the kids.
How much does a kid need to know or understand in order to take part in such a movement? Children played an important role in the African-American Civil Rights Movement and the anti-Apartheid campaign in South Africa, but I bet that many of them did not have a sophisticated understanding of the political situation that they were taking part in.
For me, it’s about values. No one tells you not to take your kids to church because they aren’t old enough to understand religion yet. You take them before they’re old enough to understand b/c you want them to know that it’s important. The same is true with protests, IMO.
to Shiloh: I don’t think this kid is in much danger b/c she is in New Delhi, not Myanmar.
October 3rd, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Ok, it seems as if the discussion of this issue is assuming a very Western outlook. Perhaps we can’t help but look at it thru our own lens. But it’s Burma, where freedom of speech is not even an issue, it just doesn’t exist along with lots of other things we take for granted. Perhaps the parents felt it was necessary to be at this protest, and there may have been no other recourse but to take their child with them. Maybe they want their child to understand what they believe in as much as possible. It could be that they viewed the risk as acceptable, and a part of their long term goal of trying to improve basic living conditions and human rights for future generations.
We all look at this and think “I would never endanger my child that way.” But our lives are so full of luxury, ease and security, compared to the Burmese people, it’s really difficult to say what I would or would not do in their place.
October 3rd, 2007 at 9:35 pm
I, personally, think the voting age is set as high as it is partly to disenfranchise people who are in most cases more passionately political than they will be later in life, to defuse the risk of substantial change.
I respectfully disagree. A teenager does not have the same perspective as an adult does. Having to support onesself and pay taxes usually serves to greatly enhance one’s understanding of why some things are the way they are. (Hmmm. Maybe any adult under 65 who is able-minded and able-bodied but is living off the state instead of supporting himself should not be allowed to vote, as he would also not have this perspective?)
October 4th, 2007 at 4:04 am
You’re exactly right that a teenager does not have the perspective an adult does. It’s probably my prejudice that I don’t find the one necessarily superior to the other on political issues, but there it is.
LeighB, this is not a picture from Burma at all, and while we do have a worldwide readership, the commenters so far have all been North American as far as I can tell, so a Western perspective is authentic to them. I welcome input from all perspectives. The question is not “do we send our children to Burma to protest” but rather when is it right to have children make a political statement? What if they get pictured letting someone from Party A kiss them and grow up to be Party B activists? Isn’t it correct that they were being used and should feel some resentment? I agree that introducing political issues to a child is an important part of the responsibilities of a parent, but it seems right and just to lump politics in with religion, particularly religions that affirm/confirm the child’s choice to practice that religion at an age when they have presumably reached a point of some maturity and the comfortable exercise of free will. “Today you are a man” and all that.
Shiloh, the nail polish is not an issue, particularly during festival time in India. The only reason I figure this is a boy is the short hair. I have lived among the Indian community in my city and have never yet seen a girl with short hair, except for medical reasons. But I’m willing to admit it’s far from certain.