Ignorance Be Damned, My Daughter's Onto Something Here!

Mini Me, given her ASD, has a different perception of things around her than most kids her age. She tends to pick up on things more in depth. Lately, she has been educating herself on the civil rights movement of the 1960s. She also has taken an interest in not just the assassination of great leaders over the last 200 years, (Lincoln, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, JFK) but the motivation behind those killings. Heavy subjects for a 7 year old?  Sure.

It is very hard for her to grasp the notion that you would feel differently toward someone just because of their skin color. To be honest, this is a hard thing for me to grasp. I was raised in the 1980s-90s, many years after the civil rights movement. I was also raised that people are defined by what they do and how they treat others. I try hard to instill this into my own child, although she seems to be coming to that place very naturally.

This morning on the way to school, she says to me that she wishes she could have "been alive when people were learning to treat everyone fairly." I told her...she is. While now the focus is not so much on the color of skin, there is a major movement in our country for the rights of others based on sexuality. Sexuality...there's a word my parents never used in my presence as a child!  However, it is a reality, it is everywhere, and my daughter is a part of the generation that will hopefully be more of a solution than a part of the problem where it's concerned.

I pray one day she will look back and see the amazing struggles, and progress, made by our country to once again see past what we perceive as different and embrace all lifestyles equally. I love that she views her friends with two moms, or two dads, no differently than she views herself. They are lucky kids who are loved and cared for, just like she is. I encourage her to stand strong in that, and remember that not everyone will agree.

She can't see the big picture now, but one day she will.  She, and kids her age, are a part of a civil rights movement. Now we just pray we all keep moving forward.

Love is love.