Posted by Joe on: 10.22.2007 /
A friend told me a worrying story the other day.
She had been telling her daughter about the ongoing boycott of Nestle due to their behaviour in the developing world, leading to increases in deaths caused by the use of baby milk formula and dirty water. This clearly sunk in rather too literally.
Some time later the girl saw someone eating a Nestle product at lunchtime break. Wide eyed she said “Don’t eat that…. IT’LL KILL YOU”.
Once you’ve all wiped the coffee from your computer screens, maybe we all need to learn a little something about how we teach our children. I still can’t stop laughing…
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Comment by: Rachel
1 10/23/07 9:48 AM | Comment Link |Joe, this story reminds me of a great little children’s book The Berenstain Bears Learn About Strangers. In it, Brother and Sister Bear are taught about stranger danger. Sister Bear takes it all very seriously and becomes quite paranoid and fearful. She begins to imagine frightening and menacing figures around every corner and behind every tree. Finally Mama and Papa Bear sit her down and explain that the vast majority people are safe and would not hurt children. They explain that there are only “a few bad apples in the barrel” but because they can’t tell exactly who those bad apples are, the children need to be cautious and use common sense. But they don’t need to be fearful. I think it’s a great book because it gives children a balanced view of stranger danger, but also because it reminds parents to be careful not to cause excessive fear in their kids.
Comment by: benjamin ady
2 10/23/07 12:40 PM | Comment Link |It reminds me of a thing that’s going on on UW campus this week. The college republicans are running “islamo facism awareness week”. don’t you love that title. the opening lines in the article in todays UW daily are:
which just goes to show that some people never do get past the awareness level that is totally normal for a child.
if you say anything often enough, I guess, some people will buy into it, even though they are adults now.
Comment by: benjamin ady
3 10/23/07 12:42 PM | Comment Link |at one level you gotta feel sorry for the college republicans around here. they are operating on a campus of 40,000 undergrads where no doubt some 90% plus of these students are either already die hard liberals, or are in the process of being converted to die hard liberals. You gotta respect them for swimming so bravely against that current.
Comment by: Julie Clawson
4 10/23/07 11:25 PM | Comment Link |Well maybe we need to start thinking like a child on this one. If caring for the well being of others (like Jesus commanded us to) doesn’t motivate us to do crap about the seriously evil things Nestle has done (with formula and human trafficking in the chocolate industry), perhaps fear for our own butts will.
Sorry but I am having a very cynical sort of day and am really fed up with the attitude of “if it doesn’t affect me and mine I don’t give a damn” I seem to be encountering everywhere…
Comment by: Benjamin
5 10/23/07 11:29 PM | Comment Link |thankyou julie. for reminding us! Glad you’re around, helping us escape the banality of evil.
Comment by: joe
6 10/24/07 5:53 AM | Comment Link |Yeah I agree Julie. I guess the problem I’m identifying is how to do that without our children getting the wrong end of the stick and becoming facists.
Comment by: Staci
7 10/24/07 5:31 PM | Comment Link |Thank goodness for those U-dub republicans! I had not realized people had forgotten about the threat of terrorism. Bless their hearts for helping everyone rank their fears properly.
Kids are so great! And boy, just when we think they aren’t paying attention they say something like that. It is hard to gauge how much to share with kids about these kinds of things. I think one of the most important parts of this is to teach decision making skills. Like… “I decided not to buy Nestle stuff like candy bars because the company doesn’t act safely and responsibly. That is very important to me - more important than (taste, price, etc.) - so if I want to have a candy bar I will make another choice.” Seems like most grade schools use these words a lot so it would fit in with what most kids already know. My son is in middle school now, so I would go into more detail with him. But I think kids let you know when they are ready for more by asking questions like, “what do they do that isn’t safe or responsible?”
Comment by: lisa
8 10/26/07 12:44 PM | Comment Link |i lived among the maasai people from ‘89-2000. they had cultural taboos that made it difficult for women to have enough milk to nurse their babies properly so they often wanted to add formula to baby diets. the dirty water syndrome was a real danger. we worked hard to model that babies that were only breast-fed would be healthier. we saw advances. now with HIV/AIDS, the correct procedure for babies born to HIV+ women is to stop breastfeeding at 3 mos and go to formula. square 1 again :-(
Comment by: benjamin ady
9 10/26/07 1:29 PM | Comment Link |Lisa,
curious about the 3 month mark. feels arbitrary. Is there reasoning behind that? Sometimes it feels like The Evil has it in for africa more than for other places.
I’ll have to get my wife in touch with you–she’s very interested in this sort of thing because of her training as nurse/midwife. Are you guys working in medical setting now in Tanzania?
Comment by: lisa
10 10/26/07 1:37 PM | Comment Link |We are no longer directly among the Maasai. We were on site, doing many things, running the clinic being one of those. But we are not medical. Our staff took care of patients and we had an U.S. doctor who traveled between clinics to do more training etc. My understanding of the 3 mos. mark is that women who are HIV positive are often not diagnosed until they come in for prenatal care. When it is discovered, they begin to take the meds needed. After birth, the baby is given these as well, but they baby needs to get off breast milk as it is tainted. I believe the idea is that the benefits of breast milk for 3 mos gives them a base for a healthy start, but then you have to get them onto a “clean” food source, couple with the meds they need and hopefully they will revert to negative before they get too much older. Hope that helps.
Comment by: lisa
11 10/26/07 1:39 PM | Comment Link |PS I agree that evil seems to really have it in for Africa. Certainly the evil one loves disease and death and it seems to happen so easily here…