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"So! How are the Children?"
Reprinted from Fall 2001
The story goes that among the East African Maasai people the traditional greeting is not "How are you?" but rather, "So! How are the children?" The Maasai beleve that if the children are well, safety and peace will prevail for all.
We would do well to learn from the Maasai. Greeting one another by first asking about children could help remind us what is required to build an authentic community where the responsibility to care for all the children is a top priority of all. Maybe we would begin living our lives in a way that demonstrates care for all children if we knew that we had to answer for their welfare every time we greeted someone.
What if every time we met one another we used this question as our greeting? What if beyond the greeting, we took into consideration the effect our decisions will have not only on our own children, but all the children? Asking this question can create greater awareness that the well-being of "the children" is a crucial indicator of the well being of a community or society.
Promoting youth development is an important aspect of our prevention and community education programs at BRiDGES |
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Youth need to develop a wide range of positive life skills and pro-social behaviors in order to make healthy choices and avoid the harmful use of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. All segments of the community must work together - families, neighbors, schools, youth organizations, businesses, employers, local governments, congregations and residents - to meet the challenge of raising healthy children. As Peter Benson puts it in the book, All Kids are Our Kids, "The measure of the health of a society is how well it takes care of its youngest generation. By this standard, we fail."
To spread the word that the health of our children is of vital importance to the whole community. BRIDGES is participating in a growing national movement by using "So! How are the Children?" as an allegory for child advocacy. If you are concerned about the future of our children join us in this campaign by wearing a "So? How are the children?" pin and adopting this greeting. To find out more about this campaign and how you can receive pins for yourself or your group simply call BRiDGES at (315) 697-3947 and ask:
"So? How are the children?"
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| Using the Maasai greeting as an allegory for child advocacy originated with Rev. Patrick T. O'Neil in a sermon delivered at the First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church, Framingham Mass. in 1991. Rev. O'Neill, happened to meet an African foreign exchange student who told him about the Maasai people who live in and around the Great Rift Valley. The Maasai are a semi-nomadic pastoral people who value their cattle and their children above all else. This is reflected in the traditional Maasai greeting, a complex ritualistic interchange that includes each asking the other, "How are the cattle?" followed by, "And how are the children?" Inspired by the Maasai regard for children, Rev. O'Neill turned the greeting into an allegory for child advocacy in the sermon, "And How are the Children." The allegory eventually found its way into a publication of the Children's Defense Fund that promotes their "Leave No Child Behind" campaign. See Shannon Daley-Harns, Joining Hearts, Hands and Voices to Leave No Child Behind (Wash., DC: Children's Defense Fund, 2000) pg. 114. Two years ago the "Stand for Children - Minneapolis Group" adopted "So? How are the Children?" as a unifying message for its child advocacy work; and "Congregations Concerned for Children," a Minnesota based child advocacy network, is currently using the allegory in its 2001 legislative campaign. It is through the efforts of these two groups that the allegory is now emerging as a unifying message for a national child advocacy movement. |
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