Raising Patriotic Kids

[servicepub (RIP)]

I can't remember where I lifted this many years ago (but I will be embarrassed if it originally came from MLU). I love this text and read it occasionally.

RAISING PATRIOTIC KIDS

Holidays like Rembrance Day and Canada Day are good times to talk about parenthood and patriotism, or more specifically, to share my sure-fire secrets for raising great Canadians. Yeah, I know, I've made a lot of mistakes as a father. But can't we just accentuate the positive for now? There is one thing I've done spectacularly right. I've given my kids Canada, which is, my countrymen, no small gift.
Talking to kids about patriotism is tricky, especially if you're a white man who has had every opportunity our Dominion affords. If you've had some grace shed on thee, it's easy to sound like a guy who's mistaken his own good fortune for a society as generous as the one we'd planned.

But I've figured out how to make the kids love their country. My Plan for Raising Patriots proceeds from the following mission statement: to find a deep patriotism, a belief in our country that both accepts our blunders and still savors the durable importance of the enterprise. This Plan seeks a compromise between the red meat of "My country right or wrong" and the tofu of "We're just another nation-state run by plutocrats." Neither makes sense. It's as foolish to support our country no matter what, as it is to believe there is nothing singular about us.

The Plan proceeds from two rules. First, save the bad stuff -- the fight between French and British founders that gave us birth, the suppression of ‘native’ revolt in the west that helped us grow -- until middle school. There's plenty of time for looking into dark corners then. And second, sell the stage, not the show. If you try to explain particular events not only will the kids lose consciousness ("Hey, kids, the Viet Cong were either a proto-populist anti-colonialist liberation army or ? ...") but, more important, sometimes the plain facts don't always endorse our team.

So, instead, just give them a sense of our geography, of all the space out there where they might do something, anything, everything. Kids need a sense of possibility as much as they need mother's milk, and “Ad Mare Usque Ad Mare”, the sea-to-shining-seaness of this country is a huge empowering promise.

Step one:
When the kids are very small, buy them one of those wooden Canada jigsaw puzzles, in which they will, I promise, have absolutely zero interest. Doesn't matter. Whenever you get the chance, point out Manitoba or little PEI or Nuavit, "the great big territory at the top". Their apathy is irrelevant. Your message that this frontier is available to them will insinuate its way into their mushy little brains. Don't, under any circumstances, be deterred by their mother, who may claim, and I quote, that you're "browbeating the kids" with images of Saskatchewan, golden with grain. Women love their country differently than we do.

Step two:
When the kids are a little older, splurge for a topographical map as well. Let them feel the Rockies, the Canadian Shield, the immense prairies, the mountains and plains that have shaped the tribes, contained eccentric dreams. Whenever possible, link each province with its terrain or produce – BC with those peaks, Ontario with factories, PEI with its spuds, the Maritimes with fishing, Montreal with its jazz. Get music like Stompin’ Tom Connors and Gordon Lightfoot or Stan Rogers. Sell the molten steel/rolling hills catalog, the thousand forums for self-invention. The ambition is to give them the juice of Canada, without simplifying its history. By the time they're 10 or 11, don't shrink from the two solitudes, the ethnic issues of residential schools and indian reservations, the controversy of the North-West Rebellion, the refusal to accept jewish refugees in 1939 or the seizing of Japanese Canadian properties during the Second World War, but point out too the success of the underground railroad… celebrate the fact that the first black man to earn a Victoria Cross was a Haligonian and that the Mounties got along with Sitting Bull when Custer couldn’t. That's a big part of our story. And the high plains of Alberta are still beautiful and the loam in the Fraser delta is still rich.

Step three:
Offer your children money to memorize every provincial and territorial capital. Ignore their mother's whining that they should learn for learning's sake. Mastering this list will be a great long-term asset to your child. It's worth $25. Trust me. There is something deeply empowering to a kid if he knows that Iqaluit is the capitol of Nunavut and that that territiry is 1/5 of the total Canadian land mass. Somehow he comes to care about Nunavut. You can't be a Canadian unless you care about Nunavut. Nobody who grew up knowing all the provincial and territorial capitals has ever become society's problem.

Step four:
Offer them money to memorize both the preamble to the Constitution and the oath of allegiance. These are magical pieces of writing. If they have a niche in your children's brains, our country is well served, and the kids will always feel as though they have a home. More important, their chances of going to college double.

Step five:
Don't worry that your patriotic propaganda is wasted on them. Or if your wife claims that you're actually making them hate Canada with "all your pop quizzes on the leading products of Quebec." Your message will make its way into their hearts. How do I know? I was was stationed up North in the Yukon and watched a youngster reading Robert Service’s memoral poem, “The Law of the Yukon” I watched this lad mouth the words, "Send not your foolish and feeble; send me your strong and your sane Something told the boy that these words were somehow different than "Horton Hears A Who." Could it have been the public relations campaign orchestrated by his Dad? This was the source of the legend.

Step six:
When the kids get to middle school, make sure they understand that Sir John A. MacDonald was a great orator and a drunk, that ideals are one thing, but that real freedom is greatly rare. Tell the kids to be thankful, not proud, that they're Canadians. Tell them that Canadian patriotism is not mere love of country, but suspicion of the guy in charge, and a durable prejudice in favor of the guy with no juice, the fellow whose only connections are to his faith, his patch and his people. Tell them that Canadian patriotism doesn't chant angrily; it sings softly. Tell them that Canadian patriotism isn't loud, but vigilant and humble. Tell them that even if we're ashamed of some of our actions, we can take pride in what we hope for. Our ambitions are worth honouring. Tell the kids that for all our crimes of racism, industrial rapaciousness and mere muscle, despite the regularity with which the little guy takes it in the neck, this land from Vancouver island to the rocky shores of Newfoundland remains a possibility; we still have a chance. Tell them that though we've fallen short of liberty and justice for all, this is a work in progress, that you're full of hope because their generation has yet to summon its attention and its big heart on behalf of the dream. Happy Birthday, Canada!

Anon

[Tony Smith]

Originally Posted by servicepub

When the kids are a little older, ....... Sell them......the thousand forums for self-invention. The ambition is to give them the juice of Canada, without simplifying its history.
Anon

Thousand Forums? I have trouble keeping up with the Dozen Forums of MLU!