Let's Do Thankful

As part of our ongoing effort to raise a kind, polite, helpful, and all around fantastic kid, my fiance and I introduced "Thankful" into our pre-dinner routine.

At first, even though I was 100% supportive of the idea of "Thankful," I felt weird doing it.  I'm not religious, and I'm not used to public displays of...well, religiosity.

But leave it to a two-year-old to take all the potential self-righteous do-goodiness out of even the most self-righteous, do-goody activities.  Every night, Liza runs to the table, holds out her hands (in, I must say, a very demanding manner), and shouts, "Let's do Thankful!"  Then grabs our hands, says, "Umm...I'm thankful for..." and lists the most important things in her life.
Last night, it was "pink suns, tasty milks, and cheese."

This is NOT what "Thankful" looks like in our house.

Other favorites on her list include lights, walls, "mac and roni cheese," ice cream, books, pictures, Rainbow Brite and, once, "boys."

Yes, that last one gave us a heart attack at the time.  Thinking back on it now, though, I must admit I'm pretty thankful for boys, too.  In fact, I'm also pretty thankful for lights, walls, ice cream, books, and all the rest.  And if there were pink suns, you better believe I'd be thankful for them.

Actually, aside from the fact that this is an Asian boy, "Thankful"
looks remarkably like this... only louder.

I've been thinking about this lately, as I've watched the American political landscape seep into our culture in increasingly negative ways.  Instead of being thankful for lights and walls and books, we're angry about the things we don't have.  That anger is being harnessed by our politicians, who have been very good at whipping it into a frenzy and then pointing a finger of blame and letting us unleash all that anger at the target of their choosing.

More often than not, lately, this target has been people more or less just like us.  We've been directed to point fingers of blame at the gay community, at pregnant women, at teachers and other public workers, at immigrants, at Muslims. 

Seriously, dude?  How is this helpful?

We've been told that these are the people who are making our lives worse, these are the people whose lifestyles are a threat to the sanctity of marriage, of life, of liberty, of a living wage.  We've been made to believe that life is a zero-sum proposition--that the more my neighbor has, the less there is to go around for me.

And the message works in part because this is so easy to believe.  In our increasingly global world, we understand instinctively that there are simply too many people on the planet for everyone to consume resources at the current American averages.  Add the economic crisis--and by this I mean job loss and housing foreclosures, not treasury issues--and the politicians have an easy sell.

There's already fear and anger, all they have to do is direct it.

And so I propose that we all do Thankful.  Not for the big things, necessarily, but for the little things that add up to big things.  Heat, shelter, books, lights, mac and roni cheese. 

Add a little powdered cheese and pasta, and this is Utopia as my daughter sees it.

This doesn't mean we stop there.  We don't have to accept the systemic injustices, the underemployment, the housing disaster, the loss of the middle class.  But if we really want to fix these problems, it's going to take community and maybe even a certain amount of do-goodiness to get there.  Because before we can fix the problems, we have to be able to see them clearly, and we can't see anything through all this anger. 
Your gay neighbor is not preventing you from having a great marriage, your kid's teacher is not stealing your pension, the 19-year-old who is not ready to be a mom is not hurting you or your child, and the mosque down the street is not plotting your demise.  All of these people are simply doing what you are doing--living their lives in the best way they know how.

So let's stop a minute and do Thankful.

I'm thankful for babies and music and sunshine and trees.

You?