Free To Be...?

Letting Children Be Children

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No matter what happens, always keep your childhood innocence. It’s the most important thing. ~Federico Fellini

I come to my keyboard this week emotional, feeling enormous grief for children and young adults living in this twisted current culture of ours. The school shooting in Nashville underscores, yet again, our futility and failure as a country to keep kids safe, and to address the real mental health consequences of the past few years. We failed those innocent victims. Some might say we failed the troubled, suicidal trans shooter, too.

Fear of being shot at school is only one of the anxieties we’ve saddled our little ones with. Our utterly insane national bickering over what kids are exposed to—from drag queens to marble penises (I’m a fan of both, but there’s a time and place). The introduction of confusing, divisive ideas of race, shame, and privilege at the age when kids just want to play together. The reckless imposition of adult concepts of gender and sexuality that even adults themselves can’t reach a consensus about. Creating dangerous situations where children, desperate to be special and belong, may seek approval by “deciding” they’re trans, or non-binary. It’s up to adults to comprehend the difference between allowing kids to express and explore, and forcing decisions that they’re not—and should not—be ready to make. How can intelligent, well meaning people rail against what they see as the “assignment” and imposition of gender identity upon children at birth, and yet not do everything they can to support the prolonging of their children’s innocence for as long as it can last? We all deserve a real childhood, don’t we? It’s so fleeting.

We’re seeing what happens when children are denied their childhood. Our universities are producing a generation of neurotic young adults obsessed with trauma and victimhood, rejecting core values of free speech, free inquiry, critical thinking, tolerance, courtesy to others, and respect for opposing views. The DEI industry— social justice activists embedded in college administrations (and many other institutions)—foment conflict, encourage censorship, and no-platforming of any point of view that challenges their rigid ideology. Some of these young folks exhibit an almost superstitious denial of ideas and words, assigning to them some mystical violent force that threatens to shatter their fragile sense of self. Mob tactics are supported and applauded (or finger-snapped at); remaining obstinately ignorant is something to be proud of.

Lest these young people encounter anything spontaneous or emotionally challenging, trigger warnings shield them from having to learn to process and cope with unfamiliar ideas and experiences. A new and insidious industry of “sensitivity readers” (see: censors) is rewriting books, word by word, to “protect” young folks from “harm,” rather than permitting them to develop their own intellectual backbones. For all the vitriol and protest the youth of our time exhibit, I suspect that underneath must lie a soul-deadening emptiness, void of curiosity and enthusiasm, and a deep distrust of the world. We’re sending into that world a generation who’ve been infantilized and emotionally hobbled. Unprepared for responsibility, sacrifice, cooperation, do they possess the flexibility and resilience to face the real blood and guts decisions and inevitable challenges of life?

I was a child in the ‘70s. I was a small, sensitive, effete boy. In grammar school I was often teased by other kids with, “Are you a boy or a girl?” The implication being that a boy acting like a girl, or liking “girl things” was weird or wrong. Yeah, I liked dolls. When the dress-up trunk was opened, I went for the tutu, and the tiara, and the plastic jewelry. I was tiny and asthmatic, and didn’t like the rough and tumble of sports activities, which were “boy things.” If I were that same little boy today, and my parents were of a particular mindset, they might wonder if I really was a girl, and perhaps start taking steps to steer me down the long and difficult road toward that identity. I was just a little gay boy. I never had a moment’s confusion about my boyhood when kids said I was “girly.” I just wished there was a way for me to be my kind of boy.

When I was seven, in 1972, Marlo Thomas (she’s an actress and activist—Google her, young ‘uns), in collaboration with the Ms. Foundation for Women, a feminist non-profit committed to diversity and equality, produced the album and subsequent television special Free To Be…You and Me. Celebrating themes of individuality, tolerance and the idea that any boy and any girl can achieve anything, this collection of sketches and songs was performed by a racially diverse all-star cast, including Michael Jackson, Carol Channing, Diana Ross, Mel Brooks, Alan Alda, and more. Football hero Rosey Grier sang “It’s All Right To Cry,” encouraging boys to express their feelings. The story “Atalanta” told of the girl of Greek myth who was a spectacular athlete. A mainstream audience got to experience the Voices of East Harlem performing “Sisters and Brothers.” Most potent for me at seven years old was a song called “William’s Doll” about a little boy who begged for a doll “to hug and hold.” And he got one!

Today’s “sensitivity readers” would probably shred Free To Be…You and Me for being too traditionally gender binary, with its messages about boys and girls—even though the entire point was to encourage boys and girls to express themselves in any way they chose, and for parents to embrace those expressions. For a kid like me, this album became a source of strength and confidence as I was growing up, because it sang to me of freedom—the freedom to be my kind of boy, and to pursue my kind of dream. The message was uplifting, empowering, joyful; it told me I was okay as I was—that I wasn’t weird, or a victim. Sure, today’s progressives would look at this stuff and see it as naive and innocent, to which I say: YES. THAT’S THE POINT! While Free To Be…You and Me opened my young mind to the possibilities for me, and boys and girls of all races and backgrounds, my mind was allowed to remain a child’s mind, full of innocence and wonder. I appeal to my fellow grown-ups—parents, teachers, artists, gay uncles like me, and yes, DEI strategists and sensitivity readers—let children be children for as long as possible.

There’s a land that I see where the children are free

And I say it ain’t far to this land from where we are

Take my hand, come with me, where the children are free

Come with me, take my hand, and we’ll live…

In a land where the river runs free

In a land through the green country

In a land to a shining sea

And you and me are free to be you and me…

—“Free To Be…You and Me” lyrics by Bruce Hart