A question that I have been revisiting regularly for the
past couple years is this:
What is it that flipped the switch in the parents of western
cultures’ society? What is it that made an entire community of parents decide
to sacrifice for their children? What was it that gave them the push to get
their children out of workers’ clothes and into the classroom?
I keep coming back to WWII.
Something big. Upsetting. Makes it worth fighting when you
lose your freedoms or security.
Now, being aware of this, I have begun to see a pattern.
When I read the book, The Help, the moment where the working
class women decided to speak up in numbers was when a neighbor was murdered and
a fellow maid was arrested.
When my ten-year-old student was raped, then the women
started to think about their childrens’ safety and stimulation and begin to
stand up for the after-school program.
Why do we have to wait for the terrible to happen for us to
feel passionate? Why can’t we see what is right and good without having to
experience horrendousness to be able to recognize it’s opposite?
Is change that scary?
One would rather live in the wrong until something more frightening shows its
face?
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