We Need Another Way
Yesterday, I was at the Social Security Administration office letting them know of my name change after my recent nuptuals!
I came across a situation that I struggle with handling. I witnessed a woman abusing her children.
Earlier in the week I had been wearing my Prevent Child Abuse blue ribbon pin on my lapel and had renewed my commitment to address child abuse when I see it. So I felt I had to do something.
I was preparing myself for how to address this situation and feeling terrified when I heard her say, “If I am too strict, people give me a hard time. If I let them do whatever, I hear about it, too.”
Her statement fascinated me. Others had mustered their courage to say something to her before, but it had not had the impact of stopping her mean behavior. What it did do was make her feel wrong, like a bad parent, judged, and alone - I’m guessing.
While it would have been tremendously uncomfortable for me to step in and speak up for these children, it also would not have worked.
I wonder how many times in public service we think that we have an obligation, even a deeply held moral obligation, to “do the right thing”. We take the action thinking it will accomplish something but nothing changes. All that effort but no result.
What if the answer is that we take the time to connect with the humanness of the person involved? In this case, the first step for me was to recognize the humanity of this woman rather than just fear and or hate her for her actions and the discomfort she was creating for me as I struggled to “do the right thing”!
Frankly, this was all that I did in this interaction - stop to see her humanity. I was a little too stunned by what I was learning and didn’t yet have the courage with 30 people watching to have a conversation with her that would have respected the beautiful human being she is. In those minutes I was still a little too attached to my “moral obligation” to tell her she was wrong.
But what I do hope is that next time I’ll be able to recognize a person’s humanness in these public siuations and be able to have a conversation with them that both honors them, gives them empathy, and gives me a chance to express the impact their treatment of their children is having on me and my hopes for all children.
This “seeing the human being first” point of view could be applied in so many political contexts, especially those where we feel moral obligation to act, becuase what we’re doing now is not working.