Can Kids Speak Truth to Power?

On October 15, Occupy Sandy is planning a day of action to highlight continuing pressing needs more than a month post-hurricane and the need to pay attention to who is directing, benefiting from, and participating in the rebuilding and recovery process.  This has gotten me thinking about kids and political action, particularly activities like demonstrations, rallies and direct action protests.  Anyone who has ever parented or spent oh, say, an hour with a toddler knows that children have a remarkably instinctual understanding of civil disobedience and direct action.  Indeed, I once comforted myself as I struggled with a child gone totally limp on the floor of a place she did not want to leave with the thought that somewhere in her brain she was actually singing "We shall not, we shall not be moved, we shall not, we shall not be moved, like a tree standing by the water, we shall not be moved."   As someone who has been hauled off by the cops on a few occasions for these types of activities back in the day, I was impressed.

Still, thinking about engaging kids in demonstrations and rallies about larger issues than whether the hat stays on the head or not raises a lot of questions.  It's one thing to cart the stroller with you to a demonstration or march when your child is too small to understand, as I did a bunch of times when my daughter was little.  It's like bring the baby into the voting booth, it matters a tiny bit to them, a lot more to us.  There's also using the little one in a state of nature as part of the protest, like the Great Nurse-In, or in a favorite story of mine, retold in one of Studs Terkel's oral histories, about how a group of mothers in Chicago got a meeting with a high official who was ignoring them by bringing their children into his outer office, giving them candy apples, and letting them loose.  I guess one might have ethical issues with this tactic, but I think it's genius.

 Once they're older and ask questions, though, how do you engage them authentically around issues that may be fairly complex, as most are?  (If you think this isn't controversial, by the way, check out the vitriol in the Amazon comments section around this book, That's Not Fair! A Teacher's Guide to Activism with Young Children, and see what flips your stomach does when you look at this coloring book).   Last year, we went to an Occupy Wall Street event, and then went to a protest about the millionaire's tax and public education funding in front of Governor Cuomo's Manhattan office.  On the one hand, this was an issue, funding for public education, that is directly relevant to younger, school-aged kids and that they at various levels, can get.  Still, try explaining graduated taxation to a six-year old.  Also, what a governor is.  And a millionaire.  I did try, and she carried a sign and chanted and made me proud, and perhaps a little uneasy.

In this spirit, I've been doing some digging on resources for parents who are thinking about this - if you've got 'em, share 'em.  I like this article, from the website Compassionate Kids, which provides some practical nuts and bolts advice on activism with kids, starting with "Park legally" (there's also a good piece on volunteering with kids here).  Also found this list of issue-oriented activities for kids on a home-schooling site - there are a number of resources for this broader category of social action, particularly for middle school to high school age youth, fewer on the demonstrative side and fewer for younger kids.  Here and here are a few stories about other parents and activism.  Looking for more.....

In the mean time, what do you think?