“Children aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favorite colors.”
- from The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, a frequently banned book
#11 on the American Library Association’s list of Top 100 Most Banned and Challenged Books: 2010-2019.
Controlling is not caring
Hosseini reminds us that, though parents rightly work to instill values and skills, their job isn’t to control children or their expression of themselves. Just like adults, children and youth have the right to be authentically who they are. When parents try to control access to literature—to culture itself—they stunt their child’s ability to understand and express who they are. They limit the palette kids have to create their life, filling instead it with the constant beige of what they’ve always known before.
At Re:faith, we daily commit ourselves to helping society’s most vulnerable find dignity and peace. To be sure, aren’t here to “convert” anyone; we’re here to support them in becoming who they are. More than that, we are here to join them in celebrating the joy, the realization of this child of Creation.
Creation is ongoing
Indeed, we believe that none of us is “done” at any age. We all learn day by day, collaborating with our Creator to build character, develop our gifts, care for others. It is an ongoing creation, a very personal one, between Creator and Created. Of course, parents, family, friends, and faith community help, they guide and shape. But they do not control. No one should dare to wedge themselves between Creator and Created in their sacred work; to do so would be to thwart creation, to create our children in our own image. Blasphemy.
We can only be creators of ourselves
Though we can and must join into the creation of ourselves, we have no role in the creation of others. Do we seek to claim God’s prerogative? We can no more create another person than a midwife causes labor and delivery of a baby. So maybe we can choose the role of midwives—comforting, aiding, directing, safeguarding—while these children of the Creator are birthed anew every day. We can protect and love, celebrate and console, but never control.
P.S. the “flesh” colored Crayola
In 1992, Crayola retired the “flesh”-colored crayon when teachers and children from schools in Montgomery county expressed frustration about drawing Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a black crayon (the closest accurate color that came in a size big enough for little hands). King’s flesh wasn’t Crayola black, and his it didn’t come close to what the company called flesh.
So the company celebrated the many hues of the worlds’ peoples with a multitude of colors. They produced a “multicultural colors” pack. Today, this would be dismissed by conservative politicians as “woke.” If woke means caring that kids feel like they exist, deserve to exist, well we’re woke as all get-out. Because that’s what it’s about… caring that other people get what they need, too. Because if you have the chutzpa to be surly about losing the “flesh” crayon, you should spend more time thinking about others and what they need.
