We are born into a world of hate. We are not born with hate in our world.
A baby looks at her mother with nothing by love. It is that innocence that we see in babies eyes that we love so much. As parents, guardians or even as a society, we want to guard that innocence with everything we have. We fight so hard to protect our children from the hatred of the world that we inadvertently teach them to hate. Eat or be eaten. Fight or be beaten. We raise our children to hate.
“Don’t talk to strangers!”
One of the first lessons we teach our children. The first thing a child learns is to never trust first, forget their intuition, assume all strangers are bad! Tell me if the first image in your mind when you think of stranger is some old dirty man driving a dilapidated van or car. Hate.
“Ignore the bullies!”
When we become school-aged children we are thrown into a stew of varying personalities, ethnicities and social classes. We are then told to get along and conform. Then, seemingly out of nowhere one child breaks out and picks on another. The victim is told to ignore the bully or worse, fight back. Don’t listen and understand. Do ignore and fight. Hate.
“Protect your heritage!”
As we learn more about our world, we are taught about the wars fought in the past. We learn that we are part of a tribe. We learn of the great battles that were fought between these tribes and how we either lost or won these battles. Our world shrinks a little bit, our tribe is small, we must protect it or lose it. Never evolve it. Hate.
“Take care of family first!”
As we get older and the world gets bigger, we are taught that family is the only thing that matters. That the love of a family member can never be replaced. We are told to hug our mothers and love our fathers for they won’t be around forever. The family is the only group of people who matter; blood is thicker than water. Hate.
There are so many divisive things that we innocently teach our children along the way. Things like religion, race, politics, nationality and social status. It doesn’t take long before they become confused about who to trust and who to love. This confusion leads to anger because it is the only way they know how to be ready; ready for the attack and ready for the kill. Strangers who may be a “bully” and are outside of our tribe are instantly perceived as threats. Tell me this isn’t true when you are walking along a dark street late at night and you encounter another soul along walking towards you. Your fear is unfounded, your anger is ready, your hate is on standby.
So as recent world events come to our attention and we are confused, horrified and angered about what has transpired. Just remember we did this to ourselves, we taught ourselves to hate. You were taught to hate me just as I was taught to hate you. Until trust is established between us, we are deemed unlovable.
To that newborn baby, her mother was a stranger but all she could do is love and trust, in her world that is all she knew what to do.
Love.