Small and Stupid

Kiaras Gharabaghi

With glowing cheeks and warmth in the heart I made my way to the assembly hall of my children's school to watch the annual school Christmas play. Two of my three kids were involved in the production; one in the choir and the other as the drummer for the school band. Holding hands with my beautiful daughter, we sat in the middle of the crowd somewhere, filled with anticipation and looking forward to the show. About an hour later we politely applauded, and along with other parents and siblings pretending to have been impressed we proceeded to the exit. Once I had retrieved my two boys, we walked home, slightly irritated by the cold but overall committed to the cause of getting there; my kids because they were tired, and I because I knew I had a stash of red wine and something else that goes well with it waiting for consumption once the kids were confirmed asleep.

Much effort goes into the production of Christmas plays. Teachers work hard to get the kids organized, find costumes, create the play itself and inform parents of the event. The band rehearses, the kids practice their lines, the stage is set up. Chairs have to be brought in from the classrooms, the lost and found box is prominently displayed at the entrance so that it might be relieved from its overflowing condition and the principal is busy greeting and taking credit for the welcoming, progressive and all-around fantastic school spirit on display this night. All over town battery chargers are humming for hours prior to the event in anticipation of getting a serious workout during the show; capturing the memory of children being ever so cute by feeding energy to cameras depending on the blood-mined Colton from the decidedly un-Democratic Republic of Congo.

At the risk of offending, let me attempt a review of the play on this wonderful, wintery, holiday-spirited night. It is not easy to find the appropriate words; my language repertoire seems oddly under-equipped to label, nay, characterize the proceedings. I want to give credit where credit is due, find words to express my appreciation for the efforts of so many, words that may capture the cuteness and wonders of childhood. In some way, I find myself pressed to capture the goodness, the wondrous, magical, indeed wunderbar experience unfolding in front of my very eyes. Perhaps it is best to use imagery to do justice to the sounds and sights of the play, so here it goes:

Picture Mozart having a bowel movement; Tolstoy spilling ink on his nearly completed War and Peace; England participating in an international soccer tournament, Richard Dawkins at the Gates of Heaven, Colin Powel proving the existence of WMDs in Iraq, Steven Segal starring in the remake of Gone with the Wind, Thom without the h– ...

Just to clarify; the kids involved in the play did everything they were supposed to do. They sang when prompted, recited their mono-syllable lines when asked to, moved from one side of the stage to the other as scripted and dutifully wore their costumes designed by a distant cousin of Liberace. The play itself, however, was about as exciting and meaningful as a colorblind parrot searching for a mate: “yep, you look good I guess, so to keep Charles happy, let’s get this done”. My happiest thought throughout the performance was the realization that my next CYC-net column was being created as I endured the pain and suffering associated with imagining Segal moving in on the lips of the stunning Vivian Leigh.

So how do I get from Amadeus” toilet habits to Child and Youth Care practice? Well, it is all about expectations. The apocalyptic nature of the performance was not the result of a lack of effort on the part of those who created it; nor was it the outcome of poor implementation on the part of the kids. Everyone did exactly what was expected of them, and that was precisely the problem. The planning for the performance went something like this:

We need to have a Christmas play;
It must involve the kids;
Who has time to write up some lines?
Let’s keep it simple and get it done.

Meeting expectations is only a good thing if the expectations themselves are impressive, grand, shoot for the stars, seek the extraordinary, aim to change, rebel against the norm, create and re-create the possibilities, reflect the infinity of opportunity. Anything less is mundane, boring, affirming of mediocrity, limitations and never-ending logistical meandering. Kids certainly have the capacity to live up to enormous expectations. Far from being taxed to the limit when asked to memorize five-word lines for a stupid play, they can accurately and effortlessly memorize the Japanese names of 200 Pokemon or Yugio characters; they can pick up a stick and imagine a war in which no one dies and they still get to be the hero; some can endure the tragedy of child soldiers and then speak out to the world about the associated horrors; others can stand in front of the General Assembly of the United Nations and implore world leaders to take action on behalf of Children's Rights.

All children can do far more than what we ask of them; all children imagine themselves doing far more than what they are actually doing. All children, including those living in institutional care, those condemned in youth justice bureaucracies, those abused and neglected by family or others, those finding themselves wandering the streets with nowhere to go, those living in desperate poverty and those affected by mental health or developmental challenges hold deep within their hearts and minds the secret of their very own and very special greatness. We will not unleash the power of these secrets by presenting our children with expectations that carry one message only: you are small and stupid, and therefore I expect of you to perform as small and stupid.

It’s 2011. Another year, another chance at turning the tide. So to everyone involved with children I say this: don’t aim for the banal. Aim for the incredible. Whatever you are doing, do it better. Whatever gear you might be in, shift up. Have expectations of yourself and others that seem ridiculous, impossible, laughably out of touch with reality. Because reality is just an artifact. Every moment, every activity, every expectation ought to be extraordinary. And everything ought to be memorable. And children and youth everywhere ought to go to bed each night believing they were part of something special, something great, something awesome. Expect miracles – nothing less.