"What is the purpose of my life?"
Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 11:17AM "It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart."
-Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl.
My children are visiting me right now in Victoria and as we have been walking around downtown they have noticed a number of beggars. My son sheepishly said that he felt afraid of the beggars.
There are so many people asking for money on my five minute walk to work, that I feel overwhelmed by the dilemma of whom to give to and when and how much and then how often, and so I usually give to no one. Someone told me that one of the women who begs for money told her that she makes sometimes around $300 a day. Um, that's more money than I make.
Typically, people sit all day with a cardboard sign and the signs are getting pretty creative. "If only I had $1 for every person who ignored me," is my least favourite sign. Passive aggressiveness deserves a smack. The funniest one I saw said something about trading money for punches in the face. Sounds awful but it was worded in such a way that it was obviously a joke and I laughed a lot. I should introduce these two beggars.
The children's first meeting with a beggar was on Thanksgiving Day. Outside Value Village, a heavily bearded man was asking for money. I somewhat begrudgingly put a loonie in his cup and without hesitation, each of the kids, who had some allowance money on them, put some money in his cup. "Thank you," he said. "That will help make this a memorable Thanksgiving." I thought of A Christmas Story and my heart felt a pang.
I don't want my children to be afraid of people who are different from them. I want them to see even these "scary" people and think that it's their responsibility as much as anyone's to fix the problem and if they can't fix it, to at least offer some relief.
So, because my time with my children is so precious and limited, I've been taking some of this opportunity to indoctrinate them with messages of charity and empowerment. In this world of limited resources and a population now topping seven billion, I feel like I have to justify having had four children for whom I lobbied and begged. If I'm going to bring more energy consumption into the world, they had better contribute to making the world a better place.
After watching this video together, we're going to cook up some of my perfect chocolate chip cookies, wrap them up individually in Saran Wrap, and I'm going to have them make some construction paper hearts with little messages of love on them. Then, as we go about town buying a few things for Lulu's birthday picnic, we will give them away to beggars we encounter. It's a start, anyway.
UPDATED:
Turned out that I got sick and that my work place misplaced my beater that I brought in to make cookies, and we never got around to doing this. Next time, though.
Reader Comments (3)
I feel the same way. I have five children. I feel a lot of responsibility to teach them including being an example of the kind of citizens I hope they grow up to become. Our newest addition to the things we hope to accomplish over here is minimalization. I've only started, but have been asking questions like: "If you could only keep what you could fit in one plastic bin, what would you keep?" We are brainstorming where we think would be best to donate our items as we say good-bye to them.
That's great, Cindi. Yes, I love to purge, too.
The cookie idea is great!