Published: June 21, 2009 01:01 am      

GUERILLA MOTHERING: Flexibility provides the greatest freedom this Fourth of July

Our nation’s birthday is on the way, smack-dab in the middle of birthday season for our family. With all three kids celebrating from May to July, it’s a season of cakes, water-gun fights, backyard swim parties and toys, toys, toys. How do I make the Fourth stand out, in their minds?

Obviously there are the fireworks. All three boys are finally at the age where none of them will react as if we’re being bombed if I take them to the river to watch the big show. Our neighbor across the street likes to run his own pyrotechnics display, but my boys have historically hidden inside our house to watch it. Maybe this year we can venture out into the driveway to set off a sparkler or two ourselves.

More than just watermelon and light shows, though, the Fourth of July is a big day for our country. I don’t think kids today are indoctrinated with the same kind of patriotism my generation was — and considering we were born during the last days of the Vietnam War, patriotism wasn’t quite the popular sentiment during the ’70s, either.

Remember that teacher from the movie “Dazed and Confused”? She yelled to the kids — as they ran out of the school to the strains of Alice Cooper — something to the effect of “Hey, while you’re being inundated with all this bicentennial brouhaha, just remember you’re celebrating the fact that a bunch of white slave owners didn’t want to pay their taxes.”

Talk about cynicism. Sure, it’s true, I suppose, but at the risk of sounding completely blithe, a holiday’s a holiday, right? There must be something in it I can mine for my kids’ edification.

So, what are we dealing with, if we push aside the fireworks and the political speeches? A holiday about freedom and 232 years of tradition. Now we’re back to watermelon. Nothing’s a better treat on a hot, steamy July day. But raised in Southern Indiana as I was, I’ve encountered numerous racist remarks about watermelon — and I hate that that was a part of my social education.

Just like I can’t reference white slave owners not wanting to pay their taxes without thinking of today’s baby boomers’ tea party demonstrations, as a parent I have to actively work against all types of negative thinking. Cut through the rind, as it were, so I feed my kids only what’s sweet and wholesome.

The fact is, everyone likes watermelon and no one likes taxes. I choose to exert my freedom as a American by rejecting negative stereotypes, wholesale. I refuse to generalize about my fellow Americans, whenever I actively can. Is that patriotic enough? I hope so.

How do I teach my kids to do the same? I know that children learn what they live, so I’ll try to model joy, thoughtfulness, consideration and kindness. I’ll engage them when they make sweeping statements, which they often do, because of their childish natures. Although they haven’t waxed political lately, I’ll ask them to clarify their statements when and if they do.

I understand it’s natural for children to try to make sense of their surroundings by seeking out patterns, then embracing those perceived patterns as fact. I just don’t want their minds to build cages of belief that keep them locked inside pessimism, fear and distrust. That’s not freedom.

So what shall we do on the Fourth? Sit around with flashcards, testing the kids on their reactions to various cultural symbols? No, thanks. Call the “Thought Police”?

In an age when the name “Big Brother” connotes a warm, fuzzy reaction linked to a TV show, I’m not even sure how many people remember or care about Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece. My kids are too young for 1984, anyway — and by the time they’re not, that year will seem so far in the past that they’ll probably disregard it as irrelevant before they even crack the spine.

Books might not be a bad idea in preparation for the holiday, though. Our local library does a bang-up job of highlighting picture books related to holidays, so perhaps we’ll borrow a few titles and read those together in the days leading up to the Fourth. Books about our founding fathers. Books about celebrations. Books about fireworks, about summertime — about watermelon, even.

When the big day comes, we might go to a festival or we might stay in our own backyard. I don’t know. These things typically depend on how well-behaved the boys are on any given day, and how much money and patience I have at my disposal. Flexibility provides the greatest freedom, and it’s a renewable resource, at that.

I don’t know if the day will make an impression on the boys or not, but maybe it’s not all about the Big Bang Fireworks show of the mind. Maybe this year, it’s just about the watermelon and the fireworks, and the freedom to keep it simple.

Leslea M. Harmon is a freedom-minded freelance writer, and mother of three sons in New Albany. Share your thoughts on freedom and tradition with her at Leslea.Harmon@gmail.com, or follow her musings online at twitter.com/LMHarmon