Years ago, children were taught by their parents that the most important “rule” to live by was the Golden Rule. Kindness was considered a virtue in most families.
I am by no means saying life was perfect, but we do seem to be losing our “kindness” in America.
What do the black families who have lost loved ones to police shootings and the white police families who have lost loved ones to attacks by gunmen have in common?
They have children who have now lost a parent, uncle, grandfather, etc. If we can’t stop the violence for ourselves, then we need to stop the violence for our children.
Studies have shown time and again the negative effect of family violence on the lives of children, both as children and later in their adult lives.
No amount of protesting or number of memorial services can bring back what these innocent children have lost. No matter what adults think of the perpetrators of these acts, their children know them in a different light – and love them.
I can understand the mistrust and fear that African Americans feel toward police, and I can also understand the fear the police must experience every time they stop a suspicious car or respond to a call.
If we allow this fear and mistrust to continue to grow, it will only lead to more violence.
Our children are watching and listening, and this is leading them to live in a fearful world because they can’t separate what is occurring on their TV screens with what is going on in their own neighborhoods.
I also am concerned for our high school- and college-age youth, who must be feeling a bit hopeless when they see how the adults around them are acting.
How can we expect them to be kind and considerate when their role models are acting out in increasingly violent and rude ways to each other?
In fact, I recently learned that this has created a new category of bullying. The child of a police officer has experienced peers creating memes on social media calling police officers pigs and spreading this around to their classmates.
It’s time for adults to start acting like adults and reach out to each other regardless of race and religion, and start communicating.
Over the years, I have had many medical students in my office from foreign countries, and I often find we have more in common than not. If students of all races and nationalities and religions can go to medical school together and practice in medical practices together, why can’t this exist in the rest of the world?
In medicine we realize that we all bleed the same blood and all have the same organs and suffer the same illnesses.
We all want our children to grow up healthy and safe no matter where we live, so we should all start working on a world that will allow that to happen. And it has to start in the home.
I usually stay away from politics, but I feel that this is a year that we must think hard and long about who we want to send to Washington. Everyone should get out and vote in November, and we should be thinking about which of our many candidates will bring back some kindness to America.
(Dr. Patricia Edwards of Bow is a pediatrician and president of Concord Pediatrics in Concord.)