COLUMN: "For My Daughter"

From Debra Pickett's "Studs In Strange Places," Spring '92. I love kids. Personally, I would like very much to have a daughter someday. In the meantime, this love has drawn me to community service work with kids at West Philadelphia's Harrity Elementary School. From this I have had an opportunity to see young children as they truly are. What I have witnessed over and over is a lack of empathy and basic human understanding that seems to reflect some flaw in the way that today's children are being raised. I have tried to instill in my students a sense of empowerment, tradition and self, along with the need for compassion. By someday giving her this letter, I hope to teach these lessons to my own daughter as well. · For my daughter, I would love for you to never hurt, to never cry except with joy, and to never see the ugly side of humanity. If I could, I would shelter you from racism, sexism and cold materialism. I would give you the confidence not to wait for friends' approval -- to be a leader, not a follower. I would make you understand that you owe a debt of service to your community -- not because you're better, but because you're luckier. In many ways, I wish that I could shield you, that I could keep you always warm and bathed in light, but, sadly, you must learn that there are those who are cold and those who are alone and I wish you didn't have to see them, but you do. Because that's where you'll find your humanity. Perhaps I shall find for us, little girl, a suburban paradise where you can play among lush lawns and cultivated flowers. There I'd make sure you had the best of everything -- fine schools and parks and playgrounds and clean air and happy friends. But we would go each weekend to the city because you can't forget it. Because you've got to know what must be done -- what it is your duty, as a child of privilege, to do. You need to see the city, to walk within the ghettos, to see the hell on Earth that greed and social injustice have created. You need to see it and to hold its picture in your heart always. I want you to see the eyes of another child when you help me bring them their week's first hot meal. I want you to look to that child as a friend, not as a charity -- to share with that child the happiness that you have known because the giving will only multiply your joys and your appreciation of all that you have. Yes, there will be time for playing -- play well, daughter, savor every moment of it because it flies; the time for play is gone before you know it. Choose your playmates wisely and don't be swayed by the petty gems of popularity. Reach out to those outside the circle -- they are the ones worth knowing, the ones who will teach you about friendship. And when you are older and off to the movie theater and the shopping mall, don't let the money just slip through your fingers. Remember the power for change that it contains -- remember the people who need it most. I want for you to have a sense of your place on this Earth. You have millions of brothers and sisters and, though you may feel very small in the shadow of the tumult of world events, know that by living simply and living well, you can change the world in which you live. Do not underestimate the power of your individual words and deeds. It will be tempting to forget sometimes the world surrounding you. Friends and love and beauty can take you in and make cloudy your sense of purpose. Life can be frustrating, daily events overwhelming. Bear in mind that true love celebrates your individuality and that real friends respect your need for self determination. I know that you cannot solve the world's problems single-handedly and that I have placed much weight upon your tiny shoulders. I hope that you can understand that my first wish for you is happiness -- that your smile means everything to me. I just want for you to know that true happiness is inner-peace, that you have tremendous power within you; that, if you so choose, you can be not only Great, but a wonderful human being as well. There will be moments when you accuse me of taking your childhood away from you, when you will resent the work and service that I seem to be pressing upon you. To this, I can only say that I love you and that I wish I were bringing you into a better world. · Debra Pickett is a freshman English major from Franklin Township, New Jersey. Studs in Strange Places will appear alternate Mondays.