Stop Sheltering our Children - A Childhood Lesson in Poverty

It’s time to take a break from the usual Prize related posts to write some reflections on Poverty for Blog Action Day……

As parents we often try to sugar coat the world for our children. We don’t want them to experience or be exposed to the nasty, sad or dangerous things this amazing world of ours has to offer. As a parent, I made the decision long ago to be honest with my children. I have the belief that if they are exposed to something, not to make excuses, not to hide things. Let them discover all that this world has to offer and walk them through it hand in hand. Everything is not beautiful in the world, and it does them no good believing that it is.

Now, don’t take that the wrong way, my kids live very comfortable lives. They have toys, pay television, books, clothing, food, we go camping, boating, on day trips, holidays…. We are a sometimes broke, and sometimes not, we only live on one income, but we do well considering. But its BECAUSE they have all these things that I have been becoming really uncomfortable lately with how that might affect them.

We are DEFINATELY not rich, and there’s alot of children that have WAY more than my  kids will probably ever have, but still, my children have much more than some will ever experience. So as Mr 5 is getting closer to 6 a new set of parenting challenges is arising. How do i make my kids socially conscious, socially aware and socially responsible when they have so much freely available when they want it?

Lately (before I even knew about blog action day) I have found myself forcing some realities of the world onto the kids. Here is my way of introducing reality to my children. To bring them back to earth when they think their life is hard (as all young children seem to when they can’t have what they want).

At dinner time, if dinner is not “appropriate” for the kids desires or tastes, I now simply sit with them and explain to them that there are many children in the world who suffer without food. Children that don’t have a choice of what they eat, because often they don’t have the option TO eat. Children that live off food from garbage cans, or scavenge off the land. While I didn’t expect this would really make much sense to them, it seems Mr 6 takes it all on board and has improved ten fold with his mealtime habits.

The same type of conversation takes place if we are in the car, in the shops, at home and they are not happy with my choices, my decisions, are wanting a toy that I won’t buy them, don’t want to play with their toys but want to watch tv instead. We stop, take time out and I ask them what they think some kids might be going through. Mr 5 can openly discuss with me that some children don’t have homes, schools, toys, and the complaints seem to stop for just a short while.

I don’t want my kids to be burdened with the fact that there are people suffering, but I believe that even at their age, it’s not necessary to hide the truth. It promotes a closeness and a respect. Our next step will be moving on to ways that we can help as a family. We currently donate to Wildlife Warriors as we are absolutely animal crazy in this house, but I can’t help but think that by donating to a charity like World Vision and sponsoring a child, that our discussions and stories and the kids understanding of the hardships of the world will begin to make sense to them.

If our next generation is to make this world a better place (and I really believe they will) Then we need to embrace change, educate them about our errors, raise them with strength and courage to understand the issues and to change them. We need to stop sheltering our children from the hardships of our earth and her people, we must stand with them to make the changes that are necessary. Admit our wrongs, and fight with our hearts to change.