Seeking Answers to Difficult Questions...

Today we talked about slavery. What five year old is asking questions about slavery. This one is. Sometimes I wonder if we don't tell her too much...if it shouldn't all be fairies and ponies and never any talk about such weighty things. Yesterday we spoke about disabilities and the obvious and not so obvious differences between us all, and how they paled when faced with the similarities. I guess maybe it was a natural curiosity and next step for Zoey to connect that conversation to this evenings. It took her all of three minutes to make a Harry Potter reference, and of course, start asking about house elves and Dobby etc...We've raised no fool, it seems, but still, sometimes I worry. How can she possibly conceive of such terrible concepts but then I recall my own childhood, and my uncommon fascination with injustice...with slavery and the underground railroad...as a young boy I used to ride my bike to Uncle Tom's Cabin, alone...just to wander and look and learn. I was a child. I came home to driveway basketball games but in the quiet of our living room I talked my Mom's ear off about slavery, and Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X...about injustice. It's no fabrication...no stretch...you can ask my mother. Yes, ask her about my uncommon childhood. She'll laugh and shake her head. I don't remember when such things took root in my imagination, but they grew into powerful notions, they shaped me. Perhaps it's not too early to be talking about such things. She wants to. We don't force it. She wants answers to her many questions, and she's perpetually unafraid, almost unshakeably curious. Tonight we went to the book store looking for children's books about slavery. What five year old asks questions about slavery? This one.