History

                Imagine a world where you had no memory. Everything you say or did had no consequence. Mistakes…eh, no big deal, no one will ever remember. Pissed off someone? No worries, they’re not going to know. Care about someone? Nope, you don’t remember them. Learn the hard way that sticking a fork in an outlet is stupid? Uh huh, you’re going to do that again.

                This is exactly what is happening when parents are trying to get involved in what their kids are learning. There is so much experience out there that we take for granted. Kids don’t have that experience, they need to see it for themselves. Most parents do that for them, they let them know the consequences. In many cases hoping they listen, sometimes you have to let them experience the pain and then they will listen.

                There are things that shouldn’t be learned from experience, like touching a hot stove, or trying to pick up a car, or trying to stop a full-scale windmill.

                Parents play a huge roll in this, they try to instill common sense in their kids. They want them to not burn/maim/kill themselves. They want their kids to succeed, and probably come out ahead of themselves. They want to think their kids are smarter than them, learned from their mistakes, and don’t repeat their short-comings.

                In reality, no parent can ever cover all of this. They are going to hit what they think is important, and that goes a long way. Nothing is stronger than a parent child bond, but it’s not always going to go far enough. There are things that absolutely need to be taught in school. Things that parents are too embarrassed, or too compromised to teach. These things are more important to teach kids than the skills we expect from school.

                First, most parents don’t want to talk with their offspring about how they came into this world. Though that’s the easy part, there is so much more to sex and parents don’t want to get into that. Even if you’re willing to get into that conversation, do you want to get into more details? Personal or what you find on the web?

                Sex is the most obvious conversation, but what about race? How are parents going to have that conversation? There is no immediate response to having a horrendous view on race. The closest thing is recognizing that you made someone feel terrible, but that response is actually taught. Being aware of the feelings of the people you meet is a learned experience.

                Now to come back to reality, people are trying to ban history books that teach the truth because they’re kids might be uncomfortable. No, the kids will not feel uncomfortable, the parents might. Your past is your past. Your mistakes are yours and yours alone. Your kids can and will learn from them. Much of American history is shameful, and disturbing (the worst president in US history served from 2017-2021) we have much to want to forget. We can’t deprive our kids of the knowledge we’ve accumulated.

                Banning books or curriculum just doesn’t make sense. The past happened, our kids need to know that it happened. I don’t care if it makes them upset, I’m upset over much of it. They need to be informed, and they need to bring home that they are upset to force conversations with their parents.

                Kids are our greatest gifts, they soak in everything that the see. They ask why to the point that we get pissed, but they want answers to what they see. They want to know why the things around them are happening. And I’m not a very good example for this, but when a kid asks why, they legit want to know why. They have no frame of reference. “why is the sky blue?”; “why is grass green?;”; “why is PI 3.14159…?”

                I guess the point is that whenever anyone ever says that their kids are confused or upset about something they learned at school, its because the parent is confused or upset about what the kid learned at school.

                Our history as Americans is shameful, its depressing, we sucked. Most of us are trying to learn from that, and are making progress. I tried to list some of the ways that this country has destroyed the lives of others, but had to stop because I was afraid that I was going to leave a group out.

                Point is, being aware of the past and the pain and how we marginalized people is important. It is our history, we need to own it. We need to learn from it, adapt. We can’t ignore the past because it sucks, we need to deal with it, digest it, and adapt. Sure, we were terrible, but we need to let our kids know that, we need to let ourselves know that, we need to deal with that.

                Anyone who shies away from history is showing their own weakness. Nothing will ever show your strength/resolve more than history. Those who want to abolish/ban history books are showing exactly how they want to be perceived. History has proven this.