Although news, podcasts, blogs, and conversations with friends, family, and coworkers have led me to believe the country is at a breaking point through our divisions, distrust, and uncertainty, I see the tiniest hints of hope when I watch the world through the eyes of my fourteen-year-old and listen to the words he uses to describe it.
Now, listen, I fully understand that he is being raised in a progressive bubble, but if you know me, I’d hope you know I’m not the type to preach with a clenched fist or expect my child to follow in line with all my beliefs. I do my best to present opposing opinions to stories we hear on the news, debate our perspectives and tell him he’s free to believe what he wants, even at the expense of him not loving Pink Floyd as much as I do.
Recently, he told me he was motivated to clean his room after repeatedly stepping barefoot on some Connect Four pieces he had left lying around after playing with a classmate.
He laughingly said, “Because of my Caucasian skin, I could read the words ‘Connect Four’ on the bottom of my foot for an hour!”
Never in my childhood—which was admittedly very Caucasian—would I have felt the need to describe the color of my skin while telling a story about myself, but in his world and in conversations with the spectrum of colors who make up his friend group, it’s relevant.
I’m proud he doesn’t assume the world simply looks like him.
On our local NPR station, we have a beloved host whom we’ve listened to as she transitioned on the radio and came into her own as an on-air personality. Naturally, my child and I have had many conversations about her and the joy we feel “knowing” her on the radio.
One day, she was reporting on trans hate crimes in another state. The teenager said to me, “That must be very hard for her to report on stories like this.”
Pride. Pride in knowing that even as so much is out of our control in the country right now, some things I hold dear are seen by him and are his norm. Not from lessons or demands, but by showing compassion, empathy, and heart.
During the Presidential Inauguration in 2020, when Joe Biden was being sworn in, the child asked me where the Vice President’s house was or if they had a room in the White House.
Out of habit, I replied, “No, his residence is at a place called the Naval Observatory in Washington DC.”
Without skipping a beat, he said, “Dad, you mean HER residence.”
These little things catch me off guard and remind me it’s a fresh world he’s growing up in. Mine is skewed by the perspective of age. For him it’s simply his reality.
I hope this isn’t seen as virtue signaling or interpreted as a boast about my parenting but as a glimpse into how I see the future through the eyes of the next generation.
I have hope that, as a world, we will move in a common direction, and that it will be through the small steps of the little legs we have taught to walk and will be a better world.
Thank you for sharing hope. We need it now more than ever.
Thanks for reading Sam! I appreciate it.