Loving Every Child

This is a post that I meant to write around the time of Mother's Day, but I got busy and never did it.  I know I usually write silly things about my kids or the strange things that go through my head, and in general I to keep things light.  And I promise I won't write about things that make my cry very much, but I feel like this is worth it.  

A few years ago, I read about a man named Janusz Korczak, and I think about him from time to time, and every time I do, I literally burst into tears thinking of his beautiful life.  And I'm not really a burst into tears kind of person most of the time.  So I always wonder why more people don't know about him, and I wish there were more people in the world like him.  I wanted to summarize the little bit I know about his life because it is inspiring to me and moves me every time I think of it.  Some of his writings on children are collected in a small book called Loving Every Child: Wisdom for Parents, and I highly recommend it as a gift to new parents, old parents, adoptive parents and anyone else.  There are so many pearls of wisdom and just plain parenting advice in this tiny book that I keep it by my bed and read a page or two whenever I feel like a day didn't go the way I had hoped, or I worry that I'm screwing up my kids, or I just need to remember what I'm doing all this (driving, laundry, yelling, cooking, counseling, etc, etc, etc) for.  


Korczak was a Polish Jew born in 1878 who became famous in Europe as a pediatrician and author of several books about children.  He became the director of a Jewish orphanage in Warsaw, and spent his life living in the orphanage and caring for the children in a way that was revolutionary at the time.  He believed that children deserved to be listened to, respected and encouraged to express themselves.  His orphanage was a place of happiness and light, where children without families were not considered worthless, but rather encouraged to learn and grow and be someone in the world.  In his books, he writes eloquently of the lessons he learns from watching them, playing with them, and listening to them.


Reading his observations reminds me of the best parent I hope to be, although in the midst of busy days I often fall short.  One of my favorite quotes is this:  "As a parent, you say: 'The child cries very little, she sleeps through the night.'  She is good-natured; she is a good child.  A bad one is one who makes a fuss and a lot of noise and one who, for no apparent reason, evokes more unpleasant than pleasant emotions in her parents.  One must be careful not to confuse a good child with an easy one."


After the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, Korczak and the children of the orphanage were ordered to move to the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, where disease and starvation were the norm.  There he started the Orphans' Refuge for dying children, trying to give these children dignity where there was none.  Because of his fame and connections, Korczak had various opportunities to leave the children and escape Poland, but he refused to do so.  He wrote to a friend who urged him to leave, "You wouldn't abandon your own child in sickness, misfortune, or danger, would you?  So how can I leave two hundred children now!"


In 1942, Korczak and his two hundred orphans were marched through the streets of Warsaw to the train station.  They walked quietly through the silent streets, four by four, behind the orphanage flag, with each child carrying a special toy or book.  That train carried Korczak and the children to the gas chambers in the death camp at Treblinka.


That's all I know.  I haven't read any histories of Korczak's life, just the few pages at the end of the collection of his writing.  But it says so much.  Here was a person who did not have to care for these children.  They were not his own, and no one would have blamed him for saving his own life.  But I imagine that he knew that they would need him.  He knew that the train ride would be hard, that the children would be scared.  He would have known where they were going, but he would not have wanted the children to know, so he would have made it into an adventure for them.  He had written that "If a child has a life where cruelty has become the norm, what a powerful effect would be the memory of that person - perhaps the only one - who showed kindness, understanding, and respect.  The child's future life and sense of his self could take a different course, knowing that there was one person who would not fail him."  For those two hundred children, he was that one person.  I just find myself in awe of his bravery and his capacity to stand up for those two hundred children, even at the cost of his own life.