Why aren’t children taught to cooperate with each other? Well, the short answer is because we are teaching the wrong lessons. Society, for better or for worse, taught us lessons that hone survival characteristics to ensure our own (and mostly individual) success first. While self-care is always paramount, the missing lesson is that without ensuring the well-being of others, we will only degrade our own experiences.

UN secretary general António Guterres, said at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic that “We are as strong as the weakest of our systems…and…of…enlightened self-interest. The global north cannot defeat the Covid-19 without the global south defeating it at the same time.” And in the tale of our times, as rich countries prepared to offer a fourth dose of vaccines to its citizens, poorer countries struggled to provide the first dose. Guterres continued, it is a “tragedy of a lack of political will, selfishness and mistrust.”

Dialing down from planetary politics to schoolyard behavior, the greatest lesson we must teach our children is the simplest thing: that human relations are all interwoven and the degree of separation between each of us is far fewer than six. Far, far fewer. We are not separate from each other.

 

Human relations are all interwoven and the degree of separation between each of us is far fewer than six. Far, far fewer.

 

As much as I will do my damnedest to raise my daughter to be an educated and caring citizen, she alone is not the generation. I need every other parent to do their damnedest also so that my daughter has peers to build the best possible future. I trust that my daughter will stand up for your kid. I know that my daughter will one day defend your kid. And I also want to believe that your kid will one day do the same for mine. I need to believe that.

In our extremely divisive society where it appears we are more than oceans apart; and where it seems easier to be angry than not; and where our pride requires us to be right all the time, I think it is possible to do better. And we do this not by teaching them our lessons as their ultimate authority. We do this by letting know the consequences of our decisions so they can choose to make different ones!

It is possible to lift others out of their plight and still soar. If we cannot do it ourselves, let our children observe our very public blunders. They can learn that being grounded can also mean not being tethered to the limitations of others, but in fact, all can soar higher when no one is left behind. This is only possible when we see ourselves in each other through compassion. Disunity cannot be our legacy. So, does it still apply? It must. More than ever, now.