Be Like Atticus Finch

Our eighth grade class (taught, incidentally, by my mother!) was required to read the classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.   The novel, set in the 1930s, provides a heart-wrenching portrayal of racism and prejudice, told through the eyes of a little girl.  I have always remembered one poignant line from the book -  fundamental words of wisdom shared by the little girl's father, Atticus Finch:

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.

Harper Lee, through her character Atticus Finch, is begging the world for one thing: compassion.  If, in our daily lives, we could simply put ourselves into the place of another, racism and hatred and prejudice and injustice would disappear.

Yet most of us go through life with blinders on - only considering the world from our own perspective. We eat, we work, we parent, we vote, we go through life the way we always have - the way that our parents taught us - with little or no consideration or retrospectiveness. 

This lack of compassion is what allows people to make parenting choices that harm their children - allowing them to cry at night when all the child wants is to be held... placing a child in a car seat, stroller, crib - anywhere but body to body where the child wants to be....spanking or shaming or threatening a child into compliance when all a child wants it to be loved and understood.

This lack of compassion is also what allows people to eat meat.  97% of Americans routinely eat the flesh of other animals, without thinking about what meat is, or where it came from.  The compassion-less blinders allow us to forget how the animal was caged and couldn't move, how it was racked with fear before being electrocuted and killed, how a new mother animal filled with milk forcibly had her babies taken away from her for slaughter.  If we truly walked in the skin of animals, we could never eat them again. 

Every living being on earth is the same - adults and children, insects and animals.  We were all created by the same Creator - we just appear in different form.  We all deserve to be loved and treated with dignity and respect.

We parents can change the course of the world simply by teaching our children the importance of compassion.  Teach them - with words - that we ALL are the same.  In our house, we make it simple and say "Don't do anything to an animal that you wouldn't want done to you."  Take compassion-filled actions... don't squish bugs, escort them outside.  Don't eat meat.   Teach compassion by treating your child with compassion.  When you're sad or scared or lonely, you don't want to be left alone to cry.  So don't do that to your child.  You like to snuggle up with your partner at night, yes? Then why must your child sleep alone?  You wouldn't tolerate your partner hitting you for failing to comply with his or her wishes, right? Then don't spank your child.  You like your loved ones to speak to you in kind, loving words I'm sure.  Then don't shame, criticize or otherwise speak down to your child.

Atticus' words are simple - but compassion, in reality, takes much practice.  It's an every day - every moment kind of thing.   It's easy to start: just put yourself in the skin or shoes of another, and walk around.