My pregnancy announcement to a group of my friends was a little obscure. For many years, I’ve been involved in human rights work, and about five years ago I stood up at a group of friends and announced that we’d have a new member joining our group the next June. They were a tad baffled, but since 2005 my daughter has been involved in celebrating and working for human rights. She’s drawn many pictures for people around the world, and the occasional letter of the alphabet as well.
Many people think that human rights work. It isn’t, really. Whatever your political stripe, I think that it’s important to introduce your child to basic values, and one of our basic values is helping others and respecting everyone’s right to have and state their opinion.
What are basic values in our family?
We help people. Sometimes all we can do is write a letter of support or say an encouraging word. Sometimes we can do more than that. We do what we can do for others, from the place where we are right now.
We help people help themselves. Sometimes when you are hurt, scared, or surrounded by difficult circumstances, it can be hard to help yourself, but amazingly, people do it. We value the fact that people around the world are working to make their voices heard on any number of issues that concern them, whether that’s protecting their source of water or making sure that their families have land where they can grow food.
We work to understand why people might hurt others, even when this is hard to grasp. We strive to be gentle in our lives and our understanding of others. We value the opinions of other people even when they are different from our own opinions, and we respect everyone’s right to express those opinions without being hurt by others.
On the 60th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights, think about something that you can do to help others with your preschooler, whether it’s making a hamper for those in need, helping out a relative, or speaking up for someone who needs the voice of support.