My Son's 29th Birthday & Moyers on Democracy

Celebratory and inspired greetings

Today is my son Brian's 29th birthday. And as I reflect on these past nearly three decades I see an incredible journey for both my son and myself. It is challenging to grow up in today's world and in American culture - challenging to be a child and to be a parent. I can hardly begin to relate all the lessons that came to me with both pain and joy as I sought to learn how honor the path Brian came here to walk and to parent and support my son in ways that helped him grow into the human being he truly is. I have learned so much from all three of my sons. And I can look upon Brian, and his brothers, and see the wonderful gifts that are innately unique to each of them. So this journey to both parent and to grow up and grow into oneself has been filled with both great struggle and great blessing. As I look upon Brian today I see an extraordinary young man. And I am so grateful. There is much to celebrate on this very special day.

I am also deeply aware that there are children in this country and around the world who are not as fortunate as my son. I recognize that there is still a tremendous amount of work to be done to create here in America, and across the planet, a world that truly cares for its children.

My partner Ken bought Brian a book for his birthday that I would like to share a piece from before it is all wrapped up. The book is Moyers On Democracy by Bill Moyers. It is comprised of keynote speeches given by the author spanning over two decades. I so respect Bill Moyers for his work in the world and hope to soon also have a copy for myself of this latest book. For today, I would like to share this one glimpse from Chapter 18, which is of a speech entitled "America 101" that was given on October 27, 2006 at the Fall Conference and the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Council of the Great City Schools...

Our children are being cheated of their revolutionary heritage. Go to urban schools with high concentrations of poor and minority children and you can understand what it must have meant to Native Americans to be segregated on reservations -- isolated, powerless, shorn of any chance to participate in shaping your destiny in the larger world. In 1976, filming a series on the bicentennial of the American Revolution, and again in 1986, filming for the bicentennial of the Constitution, and steadily over the last decade while making documentaries about education, kids in peril, and life in the inner city, I realized how little we teach our children the true story of America -- how the outcome of that story is in their hands, if only they are charged to claim it. Their imaginations are disenfranchised. They do not know that the whole course of our history can be seen as a long journey of different struggles to make democracy more vibrant and America more just. No one has told them that they are written into the Declaration of Independence: created equal, in value, as citizens, before the law. They are not told of the twenty-six amendments of the Constitution, one deals with the judiciary, two with Prohibition, three with the presidency, and twenty with some extension of democracy. So they do not know that every generation must struggle to make the Constitution more consonant with the Declaration -- to claim it as their own. No one has read them Thomas Wolfe:

"I believe that we are lost here in America, but I believe we shall be found... I think that the true democracy of America is before us. I think that the true fulfillment of our spirit, of our people, of our mighty and immortal land, is yet to come. I think the true discovery of our democracy is still before us."

Just about everywhere we turn the next generation is being indoctrinated to think of themselves narrowly as producers, employees, spectators, and consumers -- everything but citizens. The least among us especially need to hear a different message. I have no solutions for the particular challenges facing urban schools -- achievement scores, learning disabilities, teacher shortages -- but I know we must change the curriculum in order to change the metaphor of our children from orphans of democracy to its rightful sons and daughters...

Bill Moyers goes on to share how the American dream is "on life support"... AND steps we can take to actively bring about change. He also asks to put these ideas, these visions, these powerful actions and this illuminated knowledge and wisdom "in your core curriculum. America 101." - in what we teach our children. Moyers On Democracy is a book I highly recommend. There is much work to be done and I am deeply grateful for truthtellers, visionaries, and peacemakers such as Bill Moyers who help light the way. Tag, we are all it...

Peace,

Molly