Memo From the Welcoming Committee

I held a baby recently. It's been a long time since I've had that particular and potent experience. I'd forgotten about the need for calibrating the crook of one's arm to the baby's wobbly neck, the rapid and shifting landscape of an infant's face as expressions move through like clouds overhead. I'd forgotten how present they are, alert to every noise and then drifting after their hunger is satisfied into such protected sleep that no barking dog or banging door can wake them.

This child who I watched work his mouth into a smile and then a tiny cry is on track to grow up in wonder and gratitude. He's likely to love dogs, rock and roll, movies that include sweet laughter, food that's been fussed over, and to want to make a positive contribution to our world. That's the kind of people he comes from. But what about the world he's been born into? I'm on the welcoming committee, but I find myself hedging, wanting to apologize, to break it to him gently. We had good intentions, I want to say, but we let it get away from us. Holding a baby makes me want to get it right.

I want to get right in my own life first. I want to make more room for those I love to wander in and sit awhile in laughter or solace. I want more generosity in the way I listen, less clarity about where the next moment might be leading. I want to keep more promises to myself and to those I love.

Then I want the community I live in to get right, so the messages about what matters in the life of an American child reinforce the respect that his wonder and gratitude would naturally produce. When I say respect, I don't mean for authority, elders, tradition, or rules. I mean the kind of respect that makes bullying, winning at all costs, and satisfying only one's own desires disreputable and distasteful.

I want the messages that children hear to include the respect that self-confidence and empowerment would naturally produce. The kind of respect that makes victimization less likely, courage possible, and sexuality just one measure of how valued any one of us feels in the world.

I know I am not saying anything new, but I want to say it, fervently, because I held that baby, and he was beautiful and bright and as permeable as a sponge. He was watching, listening, tasting, and hearing everything. He was forming before my eyes. When boys are called "ladies' men" and girls are called "flirts" because they smile and delight us, we do them a disservice. When kids are trained in aggression and seduction by the culture we create for them, we compromise their potential as human beings.

I want a world where we mean it when we say each person can live up to his or her full potential. That means a level playing field. It means teaching ourselves to share power as well as seek it. It means modeling alternatives to winning, dominating, and dismissing as ways to live a powerful life.

What else needs fixing fast?