There are a lot of things I worry about when my children go out into the world without me: I worry that they won’t look both ways before they cross the street (still), I worry that they’ll agree to carry that mysterious package in their luggage on their next trip to Turkey, and I worry that they will fall victim to financial scams like payday loans, adjustable rate mortgages and lottery tickets. In other words, what I worry about the most when it comes to my kids is that they are going to make foolish choices, because, unfortunately, the right to make choices and the ability to make reasonable choices don’t always arrive together at the same birthday party.
So yeah, I worry about them. I also worry about the things they have no control over whatsoever, like whether or not the plane they are flying in falls out of the sky, or if the economy will be strong enough for them to have jobs, or even if there will be enough clean water left for their children to drink. In short, when it comes to kids there is no shortage of things that we, as parents, can worry about. Except that there is one thing that has never once crossed my mind to worry about. I have never, not for one moment, worried that my kids would ever get shot by a cop. Because why would I? My kids are white.
That’s a hard thing to write. It’s hard to acknowledge that me and my children are part of a privileged class, that simply by virtue of something beyond our control we get a better deal than other, equally deserving folk. It’s also hard to realize that this is not something that I ever taught my children, but rather something that they needed to teach me.
My daughter Clementine taught me by pointing out each time I was inconsistent with my world view—each time I made excuses for what, in hindsight, were inexcusable actions. (If it’s not okay to shoot someone for drawing an offensive cartoon, it’s also not okay to shoot someone for stealing a candy bar.) My son Clyde, on the other hand, taught me simply by being a fourteen year old boy; in other words, by being exactly the type of person who is capable of making the foolish choices that, in another city, in another skin, could get him killed. (Would Clyde be the type of kid to bring his new pellet gun to the park? Without a doubt.)
It is a terrible feeling to be grateful for something that isn’t available to all parents everywhere, and I can only hope that the same people who have taught me that the world is not as fair as I once thought it was will be the ones to one day remedy that situation. Because, as parents, we already have enough stuff—both real and imaginary—to worry about. It’d be nice to think that none of us have anything more to worry about than any other.