Who Will Stop For the Child?
My heart has been hurting today for all the children in danger of removal because of the tightening of immigration policy. I imagine it being my grandchild. Six years old and separated from family, being deported. That left me ruminating, wondering about the children in our country and how they are being treated. I know what I have learned about little children but I wanted to know how history, heroes and traditions have acted toward children. So I did a little research and was drawn to one recurring theme. Stopping for the child.
Little Samuel was trying to sleep in the temple; Eli, the priest, lay in the other room. Then Samuel heard a voice calling him. God was speaking to Samuel. Not the priest. The child. God stopped for the child.
According to Buddhist tradition, a young boy was tied up and left alone in a graveyard in the dark. The Buddha came to him and set him free. He stopped for the child.
When the disciples tried to send the children away, Jesus said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not.” Then He blessed them all. He stopped for the child.
The Prophet Muhammad was speaking to the gathered people when his grandsons wandered in. He stopped mid-sermon to gather the boys in his arms and carry them back up with him. He stopped for the children.
In 1960, Ruby Bridges’s New Orleans school had just been integrated. She was six years old and ready to learn. However, teachers refused to teach her because of the color of her skin. But not Boston native Barbara Henry. Forming a class of one, Barbara taught Ruby. All. Year. Long. Each day, Ruby had to pass a mob of shouting protesters to get to class. And each day, though she was shunned by other teachers, Barbara was waiting. Barbara Henry stopped for the child.
Closer to home is a gentle soul I grew up watching. Fred Rogers. In his soft-spoken but unflinching way, he defended the need for a public children's network in front of the Senate subcommittee. He demonstrated with lyrics to a song he wrote how he could personally help many children. At the end of the hearing, Rogers had earned the funding for the public television network. In all, he spent more than three decades stopping for children.
Today, behind sandstone walls, there is a man who is not stopping. The White House Deputy Chief of Staff is leading an “unprecedented and intense”* multi-agency effort to accelerate the removal of undocumented migrant children, many of whom are alone and probably scared to death. I believe in the law and in justice; I also believe in mercy for the vulnerable. So, I call on legislators to write mercy back into the law. Let us protect the defenseless.
In a world where hate and anger are becoming the norm, we have to ask ourselves, can we not stop for the child?
What you can do to help:
Join me in calling on our lawmakers to write mercy into the law. Ask your lawmakers to guarantee that every immigrant child has access to an attorney.
Support organizations like KIND and the Young Center who provide legal counsel for children.
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We can do this together and make a difference because, together, we are strong enough.
