A Note To Our Kids

As I watched the storming of the U.S. Capitol this week, I couldn’t help wondering what kids must be thinking. It must be scary for them. It is scary. Even to adults. Or at least to this one. When I saw the leaders of congress being rushed out of the chambers, I burst into tears. Debbie grabbed my hand and we stood in front of the TV weeping together. It was a sad upsetting image for any of us to witness. So I imagine that kids must’ve felt scared too. 

24th STreet Theatre specializes in creating sophisticated theatre for kids, theatre that doesn’t pull punches in showing the real world. Our philosophy has always been that kids are intuitive and deserve serious art about serious topics. But still, we always end our shows for kids with hope. We never want to leave kids hopeless.

So all of us at 24th Street Theatre want to reassure all of the thousands of kids we serve in our field trips and our After Cool classes and our teen Leadership Academy, and the many young audience members who see those sophisticated shows... that everything is going to be okay. If you watched those people breaking into our capitol and felt scared, it makes sense that you felt that way. Whatever you felt if you saw any of that terrible behavior is understandable. Violence is terrifying and shocking and it should upset you. When it does not upset you, that’s a big problem. Violence upsets you because you have both intellect and empathy, brains and feelings. Your brain tells you that violence is not smart and your feelings tell you that it hurts.

In addition to reassuring you, I want to apologize to every kid we know and even those we don’t on behalf of all adults in this country.  We have let you down. We can’t sugar-coat this either. It is the responsibility of every adult to treat people humanely and with compassion, to make honorable decisions, to think about others and not just yourself, and to follow the law. You know very well that if you and your classmates at school behaved like those people at the capitol you’d be in so much trouble. And rightfully so. Because we can’t go around breaking the law if we’re going to have a peaceful society.  It was our job as adults to role model for you and show you how to behave when you disagree with someone. But instead this week, the adults demonstrated just the opposite and behaved far worse than disrespectful children. Adults in the United States have temporarily lost their minds and their empathy. What you saw this week in that sad show in Washington is what a world looks like without empathy. It’s ugly. But the good news is that you have empathy. And the empathy you feel for others is why change will happen. So don’t protect yourself emotionally from feeling things. Use your emotions for good. Use your brain rather than our fists to interpret and express your feelings. As you grow up, you are naturally learning to control your emotions as actors must learn to do. We can control our own behavior. And because you know that, you are why we won’t keep seeing terrible images like we saw this week.  You are our future. And you definitely have the power to behave better than the adults of our country did this week.

So there’s plenty to be hopeful about. Everything is going to be okay. It won’t be like this forever. We’ll have a new president in a few days with other new leaders that don’t support this kind of hateful behavior. But even more important than our government, you are the main reason for hope. We’re counting on you to help change the bad behavior of this week. You are our hope. What you do and say matters. How you treat other people matters. If you simply treat your fellow man well, you’ll be a better adult than those people you saw breaking into the capitol. And you’ll definitely be a better role model for kids when you become an adult.