Another One of Those
As a parent, I see two of my primary roles as helping my kids understand the world as it really is and building their self-belief. The core logic is that it doesn’t serve them well—especially as black kids in the U.S.—not to have a solid grasp on what’s happening around them. As a result, we have lots of conversation about what’s real and what’s not.
It's not as harsh as you think—they still think about Santa, elves, and fairies, but they know those are fictional characters.
It was a bit more of a challenge to explain to my five-year-old daughter, Zola, that while princesses are, in fact, real, they only have a good life because a corrupt system of government allows their parents to take money from everyone else while curtailing the people’s right to fully decide their futures. A complicated story for someone who doesn’t really understand concepts like taxes, feudalism, or rights!
Because February is Black History Month, Zola has recently come home from school asking questions that challenge my parental role as a truth teller.
For example, the other week, she asked, “Where are we from?”, and I had to decide right then whether to explain the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the circumstances that could force a family to leave a Southern town overnight for the North.
Or, there was the moment when she told me about her classroom’s lesson about separate water fountains under segregation, I had to decide whether or not to tell her that it wasn’t just the water fountains; it was an entire economic and social system, which continues in several forms today.
The challenge of explaining a complicated reality also came up this past weekend when my kids walked in on me watching news about the war in Ukraine. I changed the channel, but I rapidly considered how to talk about what they were seeing.
Coincidentally, I was reading the book Strategy by B.H. Hart Liddell that same day. As he catalogs wars from the fifth century B.C. to World War II across Europe and the Middle East, it’s hard not to reflect on the fact that countries invading other territories for the sake of economic gain, ego-driven empire building, or, charitably, protection of their own borders is a fairly common occurrence. Just as common is the will of invaded peoples to fight back.
As noted by Pulitzer Prize-winning historians Will and Ariel Durant in their 1968 essay, The Lessons of History, “War is one of the constants of history, and has not diminished with civilization or democracy. In the last 3,421 years of recorded history only 268 have seen no war.”
In that sense, the post-World War II order and its stable country borders (in Europe) is an aberration in the historical arc. It’s a sad thought to have—to think of conflict and the human suffering that comes with it as the “norm” of our existence—but that’s probably true.
I’m kind of dreading the day that I’ll have to actually explain those concepts to my kids. But I also keep thinking about Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio’s point in his book Principles about how history repeats itself—that “almost all ‘cases at hand’ are just ‘another one of those’….” His underlying point is that if one studies history enough to understand its patterns, they aren’t lost in reaction to today’s events. Instead, they can create strategies to deal with them, with the confidence of knowing what’s worked in the past. In that sense, facing down truths, even the negative ones, is empowering.
Lest you think I’m a bad parent, the “building their self-belief” part of my approach means that, instead of dropping heavy truths on my kids, I usually just leave breadcrumbs for them to ask about in the future. “Yes, water fountains….among other things.” In due time—second grade, maybe—they’ll get the full story.
In any case, Zola can sense a lecture coming from a mile away, so she quickly loses interest whenever I start an explanation with “Well, that’s complicated….” rather than giving her a simple answer. When I end a lecture by asking what she’s learned, she usually says something like “I wasn't really listening.”
So I probably don’t have much to worry about anyway. :)
Leadership Wisdom
If there’s anything I would expose the kids to about this war, it would be the empathy and resilience in the face of a challenging situation. It’s hard to repress the human spirit and will to fight for one’s homeland.
The language is a bit outdated—Will Durant talks about “man” rather than “humans”—but he speaks compellingly about this in his essay “The Map of Human Character”:
“But I would not leave you with the thought that history is mere tragedy, and the study of history destroys man’s hopes. No; indeed, the best lesson of history is that man is tough; he survives countless crises, as he will survive those that agitate us today. [...] However deeply he may seem to have fallen, however great the disaster that appears to have overwhelmed him, he picks himself up, “bloody but unbowed,” still eager, curious, imaginative, resolute and marches on. Somewhere, somehow, he will build again. That is the greatest lesson of history.”
Something Inspiring
There were shows of support for Ukraine all over professional football this weekend. This video from Portuguese club Benfica and the ovation given to Ukrainian national Roman Yaremchuk is worth a watch.