How to Explain

This morning I had to try to explain the concept of hate to my eight year old daughter.

I looked at her sweet face, her upturned nose and big blue eyes, her freckles and wild curls that mirror my own, her little gap-toothed smile that inspired some of the other ‘creative’ second graders last year to call her ‘Spongebob.’

“You’ve never hated anyone, have you, Mabel?”

She looked at me quizically. Good, I didn’t think so. But how do I explain that which I find inexplicable? And then I remembered something she does hate, something we both hate.

Catsup. 

It’s so gross.

I hate catsup, ketchup, however you want to spell it, and so does May. I explained it like this-- you can fill in with whatever food you have this disdain for- broccoli, tapioca, whatever. But as for me, I hate catsup. 

I think it’s disgusting. I don’t like it in my view, or anywhere near me. I don’t want anything to do with it. I think all kinds of bad things about it- in fact, it ruins everything it touches. Personally, I don’t want to touch it, see it, hear about it, smell it or taste it. In all honesty, I don’t even want to be reminded of its existence. I don’t understand it, and I wish it would go away.

“If there is catsup on my french fries,” I said to Mabel, “I want to throw them in the garbage.”

She looked disgusted and readily agreed with doing away with vile condiment. And then I asked, “What if someone felt that way about you?”

Her eyebrows came together in that quinticential Mabel way as she added up these pieces in her mind. I tainted her innocence here, and for that my heart broke a little.

You see, Mabel understands terms like gay and lesbian and marriage equality. She gets why we have a rainbow flag hanging off our porch. These were easier conversations, though no less important. But hate, hate is new.

Some people hate other people just for being who they are born to be. They treat them like garbage. No one deserves to feel like less of a worthy human being because of the hate that some bullies spew. No one deserves to be treated or made to feel like garbage-- like something that should be thrown away. Like the world would be a better place if they were gone.

In my youth, I was made to feel less worthy. I still suffer from some of the effects of the bullying that I put up with as a kid. One of my own children was tormented, ridiculed and abused by so-called ‘friends’ to the point that she lost total sight of her own self worth. Total sight. And it was a long, scary road back into the light.

I used to say that I would rather be the kid (or the mom of the kid) that got bullied rather than the bully. But now I say, why must it be one or the other??? Why must we tolerate such cruel, hateful and dangerous behavior? The answer is simple.

We Must Not.

So today, Mabel went off to second grade in a pretty purple dress, and more importantly, she knows why. Today my whole family wears purple. We stand in rememberence and support for those who couldn’t see a way out of the hate that was being thrown at them. We stand so the LGBT kids who feel alone can see that they are not alone. We stand for all kids that are bullied and oppressed for being who they are, whoever they are. We stand to say not only, “It gets better,” but to say that we will stand here with you, and fight here with you, until it does. 

We hope you stand with us.