As seen on Facebook, there’s an interesting parallel between these two quotes:
“When an opponent declares, ‘I will not come over to your side,’ I calmly say, ‘Your child belongs to us already… What are you? You will pass on. Your descendents, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.” (Adolph Hitler)
“So part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.” (Melissa Harris-Perry, MSNBC host)
My children do not belong to the community. I conceived them, carried them, birthed them … cared for them at all hours, fed them, changed their diapers, cleaned up after them. We had precious little help in the process, especially when the older ones were little. No grandparents nearby to dump them with if I wanted to go shopping. On the flip side, I saw their first smiles, their first steps, comforted them through their first teeth. Taught them to read, to add and subtract, witnessed their budding wonder at the world around us. The older ones are poised now to launch out into the world, strong and steady and brilliant young adults. It remains to be seen what the younger ones will become.
I’m concerned, as never before, that the majority in this country will hand off the hard-won right of freedom in exchange for some ephemeral “safety.” I’ve had the growing sense that my children will be called upon to be strong in ways I only dreamed of at their age, that the threat we caught hints of twenty-five years ago, which hardened my resolve to homeschool, will bloom into reality.
But for now, they are still mostly at home, under my care, and I will teach them what I believe is truth, thankyouverymuch. They are my children. Mine.
Yes, this is somewhat of a sore point with me. Yes, I seem to have several of those lately (if you’re friends with me on Facebook, you’ll have noticed). For a long time I’ve brushed aside most people’s political alarmism because really, if you study history in depth, you see that nothing has changed. People don’t change, and neither does the rise and fall of government. But things have seemed extra crazy to me lately. On the same page of any news site, you have someone sneering over those poor deluded conservatives, and then across the page there’s link after link with all the salacious details of some celebrity’s life. We’re supposed to take that seriously? But you know, that too hasn’t changed. People were just as obsessed by entertainment and personal comfort back in colonial times … and before … look at ancient Rome.
But sometimes … sometimes we just have to speak up.
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