Conversations.
It began something like this: my daughter (14), son (4) and I were sitting at the dinner table. Dinner was ‘mummy-special-salad’ and quickly cooked chicken skewers.
“I don’t want to eat this dinner!” came the defiant proclamation from across the table (accompanied by crossed arms and a perfected scowl).
I said something along the lines of “Oh well, that’s all there is,” and prepared myself to ignore the inevitable ramp up of complaints. But my daughter surprised me. She changed the direction of the conversation.
“At least you have food,” she said without condescension. “Some children in the world don’t have food on their plates.”
And my son stopped whining. His expression changed completely and for a few seconds he sat entirely still considering this new piece of information.
You see, when my older two children were his age and younger, our family lived in Nepal. We regularly interacted with children less fortunate, children for whom a reliable evening meal was not a certainty. My big kids began their view of the world with an absorbed awareness of poverty. My youngest has been his whole life in Sydney, Australia, where although poverty can still be found, it is less conspicuous.
So he sat there quietly, food still untouched while my daughter and shared a couple of stories and wondered again at the gap between the rich and the poor in this world. A rich that by global comparisons included us. My son began eating, but his mind didn’t stop thinking. Houses smaller than our kitchen? A mum and dad sharing a room with a goat? A real goat? His world in that short conversation was opened. We didn’t speak of poverty as a depressing topic, just as a fact. A fact his four year old world had never considered until then.
Conversations with kids are so important. They are the start of something – a new understanding, a growing compassion, the ability to respond. The best conversations come naturally and are driven by the child’s interest, curiosity and level of maturity.
I wonder what age you were when someone started talking about poverty with you? How did you respond then? And how do you respond today?