I did not share, you did!

All of 11, our bright, witty child has filled our days with laughter and embarassment in equal measure. Just last week, whilst learning about Newton’s laws of physics, she mused that Newton was the first person to use an apple device! Her mind is constantly buzzing and she feels the need to share those thoughts and observations with the world at large. Perhaps the apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree! At least I do my sharing quietly, from the safety of my computer. This child, on the other hand, thought it fit to declare in the middle of Target, “it’s not good to have black skin”. All of 3, she expressed this particular thought in loud, dulcet tones as she watched a black man walk past. Beetroot red, I pleaded with her to use her inside voice (a foreign concept to her), and asked what she meant by that. “My teacher said that they catch you and make you into slaves if you have black skin, so I think it isn’t good for you to have black skin.” Explanations followed, and all was well.

“Your children are not your children” says Khalil Gibran. Of all his writings, this is the piece that speaks to my soul. It is beautiful, poignant, moving, and, more importantly, absolves me of some of the responsibility for this little piece of life that came through me, but not from me.

“You may give them your love, but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts” says Gibran, and how fervently I agree with him! I remember trying to get her to wear a jacket and being told with an exasperated sigh “sometimes humans don’t need jackets”! In pre-school, when one of the kids said Gia’s Indian food looked yucky, she responded “it may be yucky for you, but it’s not yucky for me, I like it, I will eat it, you eat something else”. No anger, no hurt feelings, just a self-assured statement of fact. If only we all truly lived this each unto his own philosophy. A couple of years later, in a restaurant, my 5 year old leaned over the table and, in a penetrating whisper, asked us if the girl on the next table was poor. The girl in question was wearing fashionably ripped shirt and jeans.

“You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you”. When Gia was 3, we gave some of her baby things to a friend. Noticing that she did not look thrilled about it, I praised her for sharing, hoping to instill some “good values”. “I did not share, you and Baba did” she said, and went off to play. It struck me the other day, that perhaps that’s at the heart of the issue some people have with democratic socialism. There is a lack of ownership on how to share, how much to share, with whom to share, and a complete lack of trust in the people making those decisions for them. This, of course, isn’t some earth shattering realisation to most people, but I’m slow, it takes a while for the gears to turn. Sharing your hard earned wealth, whether that’s money, property, or country, with people you neither like nor relate to, cannot be easy.

What if we turned the whole thing on its’ head? Make it about “what’s in it for me”. Stop talking completely about welfare for all, college for all, housing for all. Take the morality out of it. Make it about self-interest and self-interest alone. After all, it is in my best interest to have clean air to breathe, clean water flowing from my taps at all times. It is in my best interest that my children have a wonderful school with brilliant, compassionate teachers who want to be there. It is in my best interest if those teachers are paid well so you can attract the best and keep them happy. It is in my best interest that people in my community have their healthcare needs covered, if for no other reason than providing my business with healthy workers without my having to pay for them. Make it not about sharing the wealth, but about ensuring my well-being. After all, it benefits me if my society does well.

The problem comes when my society becomes so large that parts of it do not have any direct impact on my life. How does it matter to me, sitting comfortably in Florida, whether a school in NY city is crumbling? It doesn’t directly affect my life, so when asked to fork over a part of my income to pay for that school, it creates resistance. The whole thing comes down again to defining our tribes. The universe is my home, says a Marathi proverb. How we make that a reality is the question.