Save Our Children

We kneeled beneath our desks, terrified – and skeptical. It was the 1950’s and my classmates and I were among the many American children being trained to “duck and cover.” The idea of an atomic bomb attack was acutely terrifying. I’d seen images of Hiroshima, even at age seven. But even at age seven, I knew my small plywood desk would be of no use against such power.

Now, in the midst of a pandemic, small children wear masks, having little comprehension of how death can be carried in a puff of breath.

Seven year-old children should not live in mortal fear because of our moral failures, whether the monstrosity of nuclear weapons or the microscopic particles run rampant because of political malfeasance.

The moment my daughter was born I rediscovered terror. Holding her, pink and damp, moments after birth, I felt a sense of panic and responsibility. Partially fueled by a dollop of male grandiosity, I wondered how this fragile infant would survive in my care. The terror turned out to be fleeting and unnecessary. With or without me, she would walk, talk and make her way fiercely through the world, as would my son who was born almost exactly three years later.

And so it went. My children are grown and thriving and for several decades I’ve been too busy to be terrified.

But now, approaching the other bookend of my shelf life, I’m terrified again. I’m not afraid of my own death (or eagerly anticipating it). It’s a lovely thing about human existence, at least for those fortunate enough to live a full arc – as the end approaches, a sense of gentle resignation seems to emerge. I don’t know anyone in the “later” years who is afraid of dying.

I’m not afraid, but I’m sometimes terrified. This terror arises unbidden when I think about my three grandchildren. I imagine them in the path of nuclear incineration. I worry that they might have to navigate a barren world, facing horrible, human-induced climate events or the day when clean water becomes a precious commodity, even in our wealthy nation. I see them helpless in the face of man’s inhumanity to man – genocide, bigotry, cruelty, and indifference. It is the only thing I fear about death – being gone and unable to hold them, love them if the Earth becomes inhospitable and life becomes unbearable. The thought of my grandchildren – all the world’s children – suffering after I’m gone is my only hell.

It is not hyperbole to declare that we are living in a time of grave existential threat. The nuclear threat of 1950’s is mere child’s play compared to the world today. Russia, the UK, France, China, North Korea, India, Pakistan, and Israel all have nuclear weapons.

The acceleration of climate change, as evidenced by rising global temperatures, the loss of the ice shelf and other alarming signs, should terrorize every rational person. We are losing species and biodiversity at an increasing rate and depleting Earth’s resources. Covid-19 shows us how easily nature can strike back.

Racism, religious fanaticism, and intolerance are igniting flash fires of terror all around the world, whether in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, a café in Paris, a church in Charleston or a nightclub in Orlando.

The terror is not only these global threats. My childhood’s “duck and cover” is today’s “shelter in place,” as we jeopardize our domestic tranquility by cowering before the NRA and capitulating to the irrational notion that an armed world is a safer world. So instead of fearing the Soviets, we fear ourselves. As Pogo said, “We have met the enemy and it is us.”

In his last years, my good Vermont friend the late Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. described himself as a “man in a hurry.” His commitment to peace and justice didn’t wane as his life energy ebbed. We grandparents, one and all, need to be women and men in a hurry.

Another Vermont acquaintance, the late poet grandmother Grace Paley, wrote in her poem “Responsibility” [1]:

There is no freedom without fear and bravery there is no freedom unless / earth and air and water continue and children / also continue

It is the responsibility of the poet to be a woman to keep an eye on this world and cry out like Cassandra, but be / listened to this time.

I’m not a woman, a poet or Cassandra. I’m an educator. The response to existential risk must come on all fronts, but particularly from grandparents who are “in a hurry.”

A progressive revolution in education must lead this response. For more than a century, education for most American children has been dull and uninspiring. Today, even in the face of these existential threats, we speak of education as if it is only vocational training. We act as though children have value only for some future economic use. Schools suppress skepticism, punish humor and silence children’s imagination. Technology distracts them and distorts their sense of the world.

Our future depends on preparing today’s young women and men to be thoughtful, creative, engaged citizens. They must be fully alive, in love with the natural world and each other. They must be skeptical, not compliant. They must be deeply idealistic and speak truth to power. They must see the planet as their home, not as an endless source of material goods. They must see all people as their neighbors, not as their competitors in a global contest for military and economic superiority.

Jean-Paul Sartre believed anguish to be the emotion people feel once they realize that they are responsible not just for themselves, but for all humanity.

We must feel the anguish.