Let Kids be Kids?

[Murali_Mohan_das]

I didn't want to say anything "negative" when this was first posted, but something has been nagging at me regarding this.

 

Just *why* is it so much better for kids to play with "proper" toys than it is for them to use what they can find along with their imagination?

 

Just *why* should kids be going to school and playing games rather than working?

 

My kids have a room that's *full* (to the point where it's hard to walk through sometimes) with toys from birthdays, Christmas, or just because Grandma saw something on sale. They hardly *ever* play with these toys. The most fun I've seen them have recently was playing with a couple of sticks in the woods or playing with seaweed and shells on the beach!

 

Why do we feel we need to shelter our children (as did the Gautama Buddha's parents) from the "realities" of this world? Isn't that just setting them up for a future crushing disappointment?

[indulekhadasi]

Interesting, you have some valid points there.

Maybe it would be better to start preaching the basics of KC to these kids so they can understand and tolerate their life better while also becoming happier do to the happiness that Krishna Consciousness gives.

Perhaps I am saying this because I am a kid who takes things for granted, but I noticed I was never really much into toys after I started reading Chaitanya Bhagavata when I was 8. There was so much nectar in reading it that I didn't really pay too much attention to toys anymore.

[Murali_Mohan_das]

 

Interesting, you have some valid points there.

Maybe it would be better to start preaching the basics of KC to these kids so they can understand and tolerate their life better while also becoming happier do to the happiness that Krishna Consciousness gives.

Perhaps I am saying this because I am a kid who takes things for granted, but I noticed I was never really much into toys after I started reading Chaitanya Bhagavata when I was 8. There was so much nectar in reading it that I didn't really pay too much attention to toys anymore.

 

Thanks, didi, for adding your perspective.

 

It seems sentimental (and, ultimately, cruel) to lull children into some false sense of security. I say, let them know of the futility of seeking lasting happiness and fulfillment in mundane life, and point them towards true spiritual happiness.

 

Regarding work, my kids are spoiled. I don't think I'm doing them any favors by letting them get away with not helping much around the house. I feel like I ought to be engaging them to their full capacity. Of course, since even the Lord Himself if fond of playing, I *do* think it's important for them to have some time to play and express themselves. Of course, that's different from thinking that life is all about playing games and finding diversions.

[indulekhadasi]

I do agree that children need to play but often some toys don't let them be creative enough.

When I started to read Chaitanya Bhagavat I was still quite young so my way of playing was to act out different pastimes from Chaitanya Bhagavata. Like once I was acting out the meeting between Lord Nityananda and Chaitanya when I was 10 or so at home, and it felt so good that I decided to actually write out a play of it. We actually performed it in the temple and I was Nandanacharya. We all had a great time.

It is definitely important to let them know about temporary happiness which is futile but I don't think they must *experience* that for them to know about it. Like if you want to tell them about temporary happiness you don't always have to go to Chucky Cheeses or whatever and let them experience it. Because sometimes it has the opposite effect and it gets them hooked on to this so-called happiness, and this will delay their progress on the spiritual path.

Hare Krishna and Jai Nitai!

indulekhadasi

[Kulapavana]

We and our kids are under the pressure from society to do things in a certain way. We are not a tribe of "Hare Krishnas" living in simple teepees on an open prairie. Prabhupada wanted us to create our own "simple living, high thinking" society, but it did not work. Our movement is now following the Church model. We have not formed our own "tribe", with a simple and sustainable way of life. Maybe we will still do that some day.

[Jahnava Nitai Das]

 

Just *why* is it so much better for kids to play with "proper" toys than it is for them to use what they can find along with their imagination?

If you ever came here you would probably understand things better. But sitting in your place of luxury you will never understand. That isn't meant to insult you, but its just a fact.

 

In your mind you can convince yourself that a kid who is 6 years old and has to work in a rice field all day with no food is having good fun, and that when he gets home and fights with his brother over who gets to use the crumpled up plastic bag as a ball, its really a learning experience which we shouldn't interfere with. But if you ever come here, and you are always welcome, your world view will change in half a second.

 

 

Just *why* should kids be going to school and playing games rather than working?

 

Please send your five year old kid to work whole day in a rice field and then ask him his views on it. In fact, you couldn't last one day in a rice field, and neither could 90% of us here. 6 year old children being forced to work daily in these rice fields doing manual labor while not being fed is criminal, and if you can't see that then I don't know how to educate you.

 

As far as why children should go to school instead of working in a rice field... Through education people in poverty have a chance to escape the poverty they were born into. Perhaps you aren't aware that a manual laborer remains a manual laborer his entire life. There is no corporate ladder he can climb. He is going to be getting paid close to nothing for the rest of his life, till he dies. And before he dies, when he is no longer able to do manual labor, he is going to be neglected by his family as a burden. So that is the fate of a 6 year old child who is forced to work in the rice field and not go to school.

 

Another child who gets the opportunity to go to school (but fails) will likely be given a job in a phone booth or in a store taking inventory, and will have a slim chance to improve his situation in life.

 

A child who does better and finishes up to 10th grade has a slim chance to go to college and get a real job where he can escape the cycle of poverty.

 

There is also something called literacy. A child who starts working in the rice fields at 6 years old is 100% going to be illiterate throughout his life. Do you have any idea how bad it is to be illiterate? Do you know what type of jobs you can get if you are illiterate? And do you know how police will exploit you if you are illiterate?

 

Basically you are cursing these children to hell by suggesting that they should not get an education and instead they should be working in a rice field.

 

Someone else will complain why we gave them clothes, "They were probably happier in their natural state walking around naked or in rags". And someone else will complain why we gave them blankets. "You shouldn't cushion them from the realities of nature such as cold. You should leave them to explore their God given facilities without blankets." Such people need to get an education or some real experience and stop philosophizing in their lazy-boy recliners. Trust me, these children know what makes them happier, and I will take their word over yours any day of my life.

[Murali_Mohan_das]

I wish I could get my kids into Chaitanya Bhagavata (well, I guess I'd have to start with myself).

 

Both of my kids like to hear about Sri Krishna's childhood. I haven't read to them directly from Krishna Book too much, but we do have a few illustrated books from ISKCON devotees, and a couple of Amar Chitra Katha-style comic books.

 

My son is obsessed, however, with Pokemon cards and video games. I've thought how wonderful it would be if he applied that same enthusiasm towards learning about Sri Krishna and His associates, and Sriman Mahaprabhu and His associates, their various qualities, etc. I even thought about creating some sort of Krishna-conscious collectible card game (if it doesn't already exist), but I wondered how appropriate that would be.

 

The fact is, in the West, we try to artificially prolong adolescence, to the point where many people *never* really "grow up", and continue their superficial quest for mindless diversion while avoiding the deeper questions.

[Jahnava Nitai Das]

 

It seems sentimental (and, ultimately, cruel) to lull children into some false sense of security. I say, let them know of the futility of seeking lasting happiness and fulfillment in mundane life, and point them towards true spiritual happiness.

 

While sitting at your computer in your luxurious house or office, you are writing a message that impoverished 6 year old starving children should be "shown the futility of seeking lasting happiness and fulfillment in mundane life" rather than helped. In this particular case you are an idiot. I am ashamed that a human being could say such a thing.

 

If you really meant to say all of this about the spoiled children in your house, then I could understand it. But when you aim it at particular starving children in a third world country, there is nothing positive I can say.

[bhaktajan]

I'm honored to introduce everyone to this story [it should be done by Bollywood — or maybe it's actually a story derived from a Puranic story]:

"Marcelino Pan y Vino" [lit. Marcelino, Bread and Wine] (aka The Miracle of Marcelino) is a 1955 Spanish film. It was a resounding international success, so much so that other countries have produced versions of it. There has been an Italian, a Filipino, a Japanese-French television series based on the movie. The story, although heavily revised and somewhat modernized in both the book and film, dates back to an old medieval legend, one of many gathered together in a volume by Alfonso el Sabio

Plot

The story revolves around Marcelino, a young child abandoned as a baby on the steps of a monastery in eighteenth-century Spain. After trying, and failing, to find his parents, the monks realize that he is an orphan, and after searching unsuccessfully for someone to adopt him, decide to raise the child themselves. Marcelino grows into a cute, well-meaning, but mischievous and lonely boy who is always innocently getting into trouble. He has been warned by the monks not to visit the monastery attic, where a supposed bogeyman lives, but he ventures upstairs anyway, sees the supposed bogeyman, and tears off back down the stairs.

At a festival, Marcelino unintentionally causes havoc when he accidentally lets some animals loose, and the new local mayor, whom the monks would not let adopt the child because of his coarse behavior, uses the incident as an excuse to try to shut down the monastery.

Given the silent treatment by the monks, Marcelino gathers up the courage to once again enter the attic, where he sees, not a bogeyman, but a beautiful statue of Christ on the Cross. Remarking that the statue looks hungry, Marcelino steals some bread and wine and offers it to the statue, which miraculously comes to life, descends from the Cross, and eats and drinks what the boy has brought him. Eventually, the statue becomes Marcelino's best friend and confidante and begins to give him religious instruction. For his part, Marcelino realizes that the statue is Christ.

The monks know something is strange when they notice bread and wine disappearing, and arrange to spy on Marcelino. One day, the statue notices that Marcelino is pensive and brooding instead of happy, and tells him that he would like to give him a reward for his kindness. Marcelino answers, "I want only to see my mother, [she had died] and to see Yours after that". The statue cradles Marcelino in its arms, tells Marcelino to sleep - and Marcelino dies happy.

The monks witness the miracle through a crack in the attic door, and burst in just in time to see the dead Marcelino bathed in a heavenly glow. The statue returns to its place on the Cross, and Marcelino is buried underneath the chapel and venerated by all who visit the now flourishing monastery-turned-shrine.

The main story is told in flashback, and bookended by a more modern story in which a monk (played by Fernando Rey) visits a sick, possibly dying, girl, and tells her the story of Marcelino for inspiration. The film ends with the monk entering the now completely remodeled chapel in the monastery during Mass, and saying to the crucifix once kept in the attic: "We have been speaking about you, O Lord,", and then, to Marcelino's grave, which is situated nearby, "And about you, too, Marcelino".

The story is said to have many symbolic meanings, but is usually just enjoyed as a quietly moving religious fable, although some have seen a sinister meaning in the fact that Marcelino virtually asks to die and Christ grants his wish. The film remains one of the most famous and successful foreign films of the mid 1950's.

[Murali_Mohan_das]

 

If you ever came here you would probably understand things better. But sitting in your place of luxury you will never understand. That isn't meant to insult you, but its just a fact.

...

 

Through education people in poverty have a chance to escape the poverty they were born into. Perhaps you aren't aware that a manual laborer remains a manual laborer his entire life. There is no corporate ladder he can climb.

 

...

 

Do you know what type of jobs you can get if you are illiterate? And do you know how police will exploit you if you are illiterate?

 

I *do* hope to visit one day. What I can see from my place of luxury is that the luxuries are killing my fellow Westerners. They are fat and lazy and are keeling over from heart attacks and diabetes left and right.

 

Literacy just means that people can *read* their propaganda rather than watching it on TV. As for "climbing the corporate ladder", that's a myth the imperialists use as an incentive to get the serfs to work even harder. Most of the elite were born into their positions. Very few people at all get ahead based on their merits.

 

To quote John Lennon:

 

As soon as your born they make you feel small,

By giving you no time instead of it all,

Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all,

A working class hero is something to be,

A working class hero is something to be.

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school,

They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool,

Till you're so f***ing crazy you can't follow their rules,

A working class hero is something to be,

A working class hero is something to be.

When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years,

Then they expect you to pick a career,

When you can't really function you're so full of fear,

A working class hero is something to be,

A working class hero is something to be.

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,

And you think you're so clever and classless and free,

But you're still f***ing peasents as far as I can see,

A working class hero is something to be,

A working class hero is something to be.

There's room at the top they are telling you still,

But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,

If you want to be like the folks on the hill,

A working class hero is something to be.

A working class hero is something to be.

If you want to be a hero well just follow me,

If you want to be a hero well just follow me.

[Murali_Mohan_das]

 

While sitting at your computer in your luxurious house or office, you are writing a message that impoverished 6 year old starving children should be "shown the futility of seeking lasting happiness and fulfillment in mundane life" rather than helped. In this particular case you are an idiot. I am ashamed that a human being could say such a thing.

 

If you really meant to say all of this about the spoiled children in your house, then I could understand it. But when you aim it at particular starving children in a third world country, there is nothing positive I can say.

 

I'm saying that those kids where you live are *already* seeing the futility of material life. What nonsense are *you* trying to sell them? Do you think that giving them some cheap, Chinese-made (probably made by kids and slave labor) toys (which might be contaminated with lead) is actually going to help them? Or does it just help feed your ego?

[Beggar]

 

It seems sentimental (and, ultimately, cruel) to lull children into some false sense of security. I say, let them know of the futility of seeking lasting happiness and fulfillment in mundane life, and point them towards true spiritual happiness.

 

 

While sitting at your computer in your luxurious house or office, you are writing a message that impoverished 6 year old starving children should be "shown the futility of seeking lasting happiness and fulfillment in mundane life" rather than helped. In this particular case you are an idiot. I am ashamed that a human being could say such a thing.

 

If you really meant to say all of this about the spoiled children in your house, then I could understand it. But when you aim it at particular starving children in a third world country, there is nothing positive I can say.

 

Where did he say, "that impoverished 6 year old starving children should beshown the futility of seeking lasting happiness and fulfillment in mundane life..."? Of course he was writing of children who are affluent compared to very poor Third World children. No need to state the obvious.

[Murali_Mohan_das]

I'm sure the lives of the Gopis would have been so much richer and fuller had they only learned to read.

[Murali_Mohan_das]

Jahnava Nitai Prabhu, perhaps you feel some guilt associated with your affluence. I feel no such guilt. I feel my relative affluence to be somewhat of a curse. Because of my college degree, I can get a "cushy" job sitting at a computer, pushing a few buttons and make enough to eat like a king. However, I seldom get to sit or walk in the sunshine, I must struggle to keep my waste-line from expanding, and I spend my day associating with materialistic people.

[Jahnava Nitai Das]

 

Literacy just means that people can *read* their propaganda rather than watching it on TV.

 

Again you display that you are an idiot. Reading and writing is not useless and only for "reading propaganda". It is a fundamental tool that is required to live in the modern world. Things like knowing how to sign your name, how to read a letter or contract, how to communicate, how to avoid being cheated by people who are literate. Without literacy you can't function in the modern world. Likewise mathematics is something that is essential to exist in the modern world. Those who don't know mathematics cannot determine the costs of items, and they will be cheated by those who are educated. You want to volunteer these children's right to education (reading, writing and mathematics) in favor of them learning the "higher lessons of life": that material enjoyment is futile. That lessons is really something that you need to learn, and you should volunteer the rights of your own kids, not the rights of starving children in a third world country.

 

These children are suffering terribly in life. They eat rice once a day with plain salt. They don't know how to read or write.

 

 

What I can see from my place of luxury is that the luxuries are killing my fellow Westerners. They are fat and lazy and are keeling over from heart attacks and diabetes left and right.

 

Your conclusions are completely illogical. "American's are fat and lazy, so the starving kids in Orissa need to stop eating and get working.My kids have a closet full of unused toys, so children in Orissa should not be given these terrible toys." You are a hypocrite. Stop giving your own kids toys and then open your mouth that these kids in India shouldn't be given toys.

 

Arm chair liberals are really sickening. Always speaking of the glorious life of the suffering children in third world countries. I hope one day you get to experience their life.

 

 

As for "climbing the corporate ladder", that's a myth the imperialists use as an incentive to get the serfs to work even harder.

 

Again you are not educated on this point, so your comment is just ignorant. In nearly every field of work, there is an opportunity to gain expertise/experience and increase one's salary or position. In India this exists in all fields for those with college degrees. A software engineer starting out gets a sallary of 10,000 rs., but after 5 years experience he will be getting 100,000 rs.

 

Laborers on the other hand, at least in India, have no opportunity to ever be anything more than they are when they started. If you are a construction worker, you will be getting 70 rs a day sallary, and in 50 years you will be doing the same job and getting the same pay. If you are a field worker, you will always be doing the same job your whole life and getting the same pay, which is more or less nothing but some rice.

 

Education provides people the chance to escape poverty. I would challenge you to follow your philosophy in your own house:

 

1) Do not educate your children ever

2) Remove all toys from their possession for their entire life

3) Feed them one handful of plain rice a day

 

After 30 years I would love to see what future you created for them.

 

 

Do you think that giving them some cheap, Chinese-made (probably made by kids and slave labor) toys (which might be contaminated with lead) is actually going to help them?

 

Giving a child clothes, food, education and a toy helps them in life. This is undisputable despite your armchair speculations of how life would really be good for these children if we made them poorer and made them work till they died.

[Jahnava Nitai Das]

 

Of course he was writing of children who are affluent compared to very poor Third World children. No need to state the obvious.

 

No, he was writing about the kids shown here:

 

http://www.indiadivine.org/audarya/newsletters-journals/445398-toys-children-randiya.html

 

and in fact he posted the same statement there. He was writing about third world children who are dying of starvation. And that is really sickening in my view.

[Murali_Mohan_das]

Here's an e-mail exchange with a friend on this topic. She's sympathetic to what JN Prabhu is trying to do. I think he's well-intentioned, but doubt the value of his gesture.

 

***

 

Good points...I'm tempted to quote you (anonymously) on the thread I started on Audarya. May I?

 

The key, to me, is being able to maintain one's sense of wonder *throughout* life, no matter *what* one eventually comes to see in the way of horrors and unpleasantness.

 

 

On Feb 12, 2008 11:57 AM, XXXXXXXXXX wrote:

hmmm...that's a really nice picture of the kid with the coconut shell.

i think the point they are making is that childhood is very special. as they say, these kids may have been robbed of their childhood...i think having a period of time with no worries, just games, is something a child's psyche needs, as it matures.

i don;t think these kids have seen images of toys- it mentions they were stunned etc...- but kids in the U.S. feel deprived if they don't have what they see other children playing with...that's the main issue. perhaps home-schooled kids, who rarely play with others, with little access to TV, wouldn't crave toys from factories.

but poverty is really interesting, in that young kids don't really realize they are poor...if their parents tell them constantly they are poor and they worry and cry, of course they are then worried (and maybe ashamed) too.

i think quantity is the issue. moderation has gone out the window. the amount of toys and clothes kids have these days in the U.S. is totally shocking to me. i was honestly happy with my brother with a handful of toys...and mostly using found objects to create little fantasy towns in our home and in the park...we never expected to be given anything except for a gift on our birthday or xmas. we made our own toys and it was fun.

i think there's plenty of time and plenty of tragedy for kids to realize what the world is like...there's no need to speed things along to show them crushing disappointment. i think their minds need a period of wonderment and bliss...so they can have some hope for their futures. my bliss bubble popped when my parents split up when i was 13, i remember being so carefree before then, i appreciate feeling that carefree back then, because no matter how hard it is these days to forget my worries...when i am staring at the ocean...that's what i tap into....i can totally feel what that was like back then....it was amazing.

[Murali_Mohan_das]

I'm not saying kids should be deprived of education. I'm saying that education does not, in and of itself, improve anybody's life in any significant manner. It's what people *do* with their education that makes a difference.

 

I'm also not saying the kids ought to be slaving away in the fields from sunrise to sunset, but how is watching TV and playing video games all day any better?

 

In your efforts to come across as kind, considerate, and compassionate, JN-ji, you end up coming across as smug, superior and condescending, to me, and to the people you profess to be trying to help.

[Murali_Mohan_das]

 

He was writing about third world children who are dying of starvation. And that is really sickening in my view.

 

To quote Sting, "One world is enough, for all of us".

 

What's this "third world" crap? Jiva-souls are jiva souls. We're all living out our karma, both good and bad. Why get all sentimental about it?

[Jahnava Nitai Das]

 

I'm not saying kids should be deprived of education. I'm saying that education does not, in and of itself, improve anybody's life in any significant manner. It's what people *do* with their education that makes a difference.

 

I'm also not saying the kids ought to be slaving away in the fields from sunrise to sunset, but how is watching TV and playing video games all day any better?

 

No, let me remind you what you said. You posted in this thread (http://www.indiadivine.org/audarya/newsletters-journals/445398-toys-children-randiya.html) about children who are being sent for forced labor at the age of 6 into rice fields, and you said the following: "I didn't want to say anything "negative" when this was first posted, but something has been nagging at me regarding this. ... Just *why* should kids be going to school and playing games rather than working?"

 

That is the most idiotic statement I have ever heard, and your replies have just reinforced that impression. To see starving children and then say "they don't need an education, what's wrong with them working"... and then you went on to say how education doesn't help anyone... learning to read and write is useless... poor children shouldn't have toys, but your rich son should have a closet of them...

[Murali_Mohan_das]

 

Just *why* should kids be going to school and playing games rather than working?"

 

That is the most idiotic statement I have ever heard, and your replies have just reinforced that impression.

 

Working/education is a false distinction. People learn by working. In the Western tradition, before "high schools" and "Universities" became mandatory for the middle classes, there was a tradition of *apprenticeship*. Children learned by *working* alongside craftspeople.

 

Why do you feel so insulted by my questions? Have I called you an "idiot"? I'm questioning your motivations, and you provide no answers, just abuse hurled at me.

 

Just why do you feel such an overwhelming need to buy toys for kids that were perfectly happy playing with mud and coconuts?

[Murali_Mohan_das]

Most of the truly useful skills I myself use on a daily basis, I didn't learn in school--I learned them on the job. If anything, school was a set of hoops to jump through to prove to some manager that I'm capable of learning.

 

As for buying toys for my children, I try *not* to do it. It's everybody else that keeps buying them the crap. I try to get them to get *rid* of as many toys as I can.

[Jahnava Nitai Das]

 

Just why do you feel such an overwhelming need to buy toys for kids that were perfectly happy playing with mud and coconuts?

 

Have you ever spoken to these kids? Have you ever seen these kids in person? Exactly how do you know these are perfectly happy children? You need to meet some poor children before speaking on their behalf as to what will make them happy and what will be good for them. Like I said before, I will take their word on what makes them happy over your word any day of my life. Your opinion as to what makes them happy has no value.

 

These children had never touched a toy before in their life. They get to see all the non tribals playing with modern toys, and they naturally wish they could play with them. Once in their life let them enjoy themselves with a toy without some liberal wanna-be hippy in silicon valley telling them what will ACTUALLY make them happy.

 

And your opinions that they really don't need education, and they really don't need to learn to read, and they really should go work in the fields instead of going to school, and they really should be learning the hard lessons of life can be kept for your family. Show your own family your kindness.

 

 

Most of the truly useful skills I myself use on a daily basis, I didn't learn in school--I learned them on the job. If anything, school was a set of hoops to jump through to prove to some manager that I'm capable of learning.

You have no idea what "uneducated" means in tribal Orissa. Numbers, Letters, Mathematics, writing, those are some of the things that these kids don't know and wont know their whole life. They don't know if the world is flat or round. They wont be able to count to 100 even after being 20 years old. And you want to pretend education is useless for the whole world because you learned the important things "on the job". You have no clue.

[BhaktiK]

Murali I suggest you back off

 

You made a few useful points and yes Chinese toys are not that good for anyone's soul

 

But JNDas is definitely on the right track here. Those kids life is far removed from the frames of reference people live within in the West. A simple gift like a toy can really bring an overwhelming feeling of joy into their life

 

When you haven't been to Orissa or rural Bengal or Kolkata and you haven't experienced the emptiness and futility of life that so many children are experiencing every day, then just be glad that someone else is doing something to help those little kids. I've studied the faces of little children living under the arches of Howrah bridge in Kolkata and I've given money to poor people, including men whose legs were amputated after road accidents, and I didn't give because I want to stroke my ego but because my heart told me I MUST GIVE. I've no doubt JNDas is sincere in what he's doing. Repect him for that. Even if you do happen to disagree (as I do) with his other beliefs.

[Murali_Mohan_das]

 

I will take their word on what makes them happy over your word any day of my life. Your opinion as to what makes them happy has no value.

 

My kids tell me that having ice cream for dinner will make them happy.

 

 

These children had never touched a toy before in their life. They get to see all the non tribals playing with modern toys, and they naturally wish they could play with them. Once in their life let them enjoy themselves with a toy without some liberal wanna-be hippy in silicon valley telling them what will ACTUALLY make them happy.

 

You're funny, Jahnava Nitai Prabhu. Yeah, I guess you have me pegged--wanna-be hippie, pining for my Dad's glory years. I'll refrain from saying what you appear to be.

 

 

And your opinions that they really don't need education, and they really don't need to learn to read, and they really should go work in the fields instead of going to school, and they really should be learning the hard lessons of life can be kept for your family. Show your own family your kindness.

 

Now, you're putting words in my mouth. I don't think anybody appreciates when somebody does that to them.

 

"Need" is a very relative term. I didn't say that anybody "needs" or doesn't need education. I said that having an education doesn't make anybody better than somebody who is not educated.

 

What is the rate of Alzheimer's disease in those villagers? Do any of them even know what it is? It's killing hundreds of thousands of Americans per year. You say they are starving, but haven't you heard that people who go through periods of hunger tend to live *longer*, healthier lives than people who gorge themselves on hamburgers and french fries every day?