(no subject)

[yendi]

So, Elayna is wearing red, white, and blue to school today. As is her entire class, as they were told to do so.

Yes, they want seven-year-olds to practice patriotism, without having a clue what it means.

We asked Elayna why she had to wear the colors. She had no idea. She thought it was "celebrate America" day. We told her there was already a day for that -- July 4. She said that they must have wanted a day to do it when school was in.

Fair enough.

So we asked her if she knew why they picked September 11. She had no idea. We explained that this is the anniversary of the day those planes crashed into the buildings (she still remembers when we picked her up from school early as a result). She then said that she wanted to wear the colors because she wants to honor the people who died that day.

It's still false patriotism on a lot of levels, but from a seven-year-old, I can live with that (and, from a practical point of view, I'm not going to let her get in trouble, or, worse yet, made fun of, over my own principles that she hasn't chosen to adopt yet). I just don't like the idea that, of all the kids at school, she'll be one of the few with a real idea of why they're doing this. And that the teachers and principle went for an easy, all-but-meaningless option instead of picking something meaningful, like giving them a homework assignment that actually dealt with September 11.

Comments

[stronae.livejournal.com]

Well, see, that's how people start being patriotic in the first place. You, a seven-year-old, love your country because you love your parents, and they love their country. Because you have food on the table and some semblance of an education system. Because you'd hate to feel left out in loving your country, because all the other kids are loving their country, too.

You might eventually love your country because of the Constitution, or because you have some degrees of freedom that you wouldn't experience in certain other areas, but you're not there yet. You don't know about this 'freedom' concept because it hasn't been taken away yet, at least, as far as you can percieve. (I won't open the can-of-Bush-worms here -- that's another discussion.)

All countries program their youth to love their country, cause, religion, whatever, as a default position so that it's harder for them to fight it later on, should it do bad things. This is nothing new. So, I guess I'm trying to say, try not to sweat it too much? She'll make the right decisions based on info that you and shadesong and others give her, later on. It's cool. Trust in that, at least.