MORAL INTELLIGENCE

On several occasions, over the past few months, I have either read in a blog or e-mail another mom or dad's account of a time when they have felt the sometimes insensitive, other times just plain cruel, disdain of another parent in whatever particular situation they were in, whether it be a shop, restaurant, or wherever. I have always wondered how I would feel when this, seemingly inevitable, experience would happen to us. About three months we came as close to this as I thought we could when unexpectedly running into a "friend" who, for whatever unknown reason, I have not heard from for quite some time. I do know that this friend knows about Sam's condition as we have a mutual friend who i am still occasionally in contact with. When her daughter first spotted Meghan getting out of the car she shouted hysterically "Mom! Mom! It's Meghan." And so-called friend pretended that she was being blinded by the sun and could not see or, apparently, hear what her daughter was saying (an interesting fact I learnt that day as I did not know you could be deafened by the BLINDING sun as well). As chance would have it, we were headed for the same place and so I approached her to greet and ask how she's been, with drooling, shrieking Sam hanging "pouch-style" over my arm, in front of me. Not once during the all of four minute conversation did she acknowledge or even look at Sam, but that could've been due to the excruciating pain she seemed to be experiencing while speaking with me. Yes, it hurt a little, but not enough for me to dwell on for more than a day. On Tuesday afternoon while strolling with Sam in-arm towards the school gate to collect Meghan, a car stopped alongside me and I heard a friendly "Hallo" from a fellow-mom who also knows about Sam and has always been really kind and interested to hear how he is doing, etc. Her oldest child was in Meghan's class last year. We had just barely begun the conversation when her youngest, about six/seven years old, sitting in the seat next to hear suddenly asked her (while squinting at Sam) "Why does that baby look like a monkey". She replied, "Shame, that's not nice." To which he defended his statement with "But there's something wrong with his eye".  I can't say I have ever really thought about what I should say or do if a situation like this did arise - but did not think I would react so utterly poorly, which was that I first stood there looking at young boy, mouth open, eyebrows twisted with the incredible effort of trying to think of something....ANYTHING...to say. Saw Mom's mouth moving and vaguely heard her trying to change topic by asking something else, but only replied "Anyway, have to go now" and turned and walked away. I do so understand that obviously this little boy was not intentionally trying to be rude or hurtful (at least I hope not) or that I could not have expected his mom to turn around and lambast him for a situation which he has never been prepared to deal with but, as nice as what I have always thought his mom to be, I do feel that her reaction (or lack thereof) did not teach her son anything, therefore better preparing him should he one day face a similar situation. Now, I am sure many would challenge that he is too young to "know any better" but I would then beg to differ. Dr Michele Borba (author of Building Moral Intelligence : The Seven Essential Virtues to teach kids to do the Right Thing) says that most parents believe that you can't begin teaching virtues to kids until they are at least in Grade School, but that in fact this should be done right from birth when children are amazingly and intuitively responsive to being "good". Borba also says that parents have a choice which virtues to teach their kids and feels that there are three CRITICAL virtues we need to teach our children to ensure that they become caring and compassionate people, the very first virtue being EMPATHY! The other two, conscience and self-control, are the three virtues which make up the moral core. (Amusingly the following question was quoted as a means of explaining empathy "How do you think this makes Sam feel?".) My nine-year old daughter took it upon herself earlier on this year to find the "right" words to explain to her Grade 3 class what RTS and "special needs" are - I only found out from her teacher a fair while after. Now surely a woman more than four times her age could have thought of something? Perhaps I have set too high a standard for what kind of reaction I expect...for good reason. I did not really know till I was probably almost in high school what "special needs" was. Digressing a little, quickly - I grew up with two very close cousins who were both born differently abled : my cousin, Gavin, who has Moebius Syndrome (http://www.moebiussyndrome.com) and my cousin, Caron, who has Phenylketonuria (http://www.pkunews.org) and later, just before I turned eighteen, a third cousin, Amy, born with Down's Syndrome (Caron's little sister). We spent heaps of time together then, at the very least, almost every Sunday was spent as a family...and I don't remember anything else other than two smiling, light-hearted, life-loving, child-adoring and good-humoured aunts who made mothering a child/children with special needs look no more challenging than being a mother to any one of us, in fact, they actually made it look like a breeze and only since Sam's birth have I realised how very much I admire both of them for being such wonderful moms - they made caring for differently abled children seem effortless and have most certainly, unawares, become wonderful examples to me. And, speaking of examples, back to the point (if there actually is still one hidden in all my mumble jumble). I remember going to a shopping centre with my Aunt Alvie and cousin, Gavin, one afternoon when I was roughly about eleven/twelve years old. I remember a boy of roughly the same age as us pointing and making a remark (which always brough an instant rush of anger towards the offender and, just as quickly, a feeling of protectiveness towards Gav. In fact, my sister and I would instantly launch our own attack with our how-dare-you, shame-on-you, now-you-deal-with-us glare). Anyhoo, this boy's mom had the decency to pretend to reprimand the boy by turning him away and leaning over him to, supposedly, give him a talking to but out of the corner of her eye I actually caught having a good old gawk herself. Thankfully, even before Sam was just a twinkle in his Mommy's eye, I tried to instill in both Meghan and Luke the importance of never making another person, regardless of their physical appearance or behaviour, feel that they are an object to be stared at and/or pointed at. If they do have something they would like to say or ask me about, they can do it in the privacy of either our car or home or whichever surrounding would enable them to find the right words without having a hurtful effect on other human being. Setting an example for our children is one thing...but much like an exam paper, just because you set it doesn't mean you write it...we need to BE the example with our own actions.