Halloween is celebrated ONLY for Chocolates.
One day, as I was travelling with my daughter she said,
“ Everyone celebrates Halloween for chocolates”.
I asked her
“ Are you sure, that it is “everyone” ?”.
She immediately corrected herself and said,
“ No, I meant, most people like celebrating Halloween for chocolates.”
I felt amazed at her ability to correct herself, with a better choice of words. I noticed that her teachers at school made the kids aware not to use such over-generalised statements.
It reminded me of an incident I witnessed in their classroom.
One day, during a storytelling session, there was a picture of an ice cream in a book. And the teacher asked,
“Who likes ice cream?”
To that question, one kid immediately responded,
“Everyone likes ice cream.”
However, one kid could speak up courageously and say
“No, not everyone likes ice cream. I don’t like ice cream.”
Then, the teacher immediately supported that difference in thought and discussed the challenges of making such statements using “Everyone”.
I think, for far too long, we have lived in a world where differences were discouraged. It felt convenient to put people, countries, children, etc in certain boxes and pass over-generalized statements.
“ Indians are always late.”
“All teenagers are so rude and irresponsible.”
“That would have been definitely a Women driver. Only Women drivers drive like that.”
“Why are all husbands so forgetful about the dates?”
“Only Gays like such colours.”
“Kids from this caste are so notorious. They all are the same.”
“Oh, all westerners act so self-entitled.”
“It defeats all that you learned at school.”
And in our day-to-day interactions with our children, partners, friends, or ourselves.
“Leela you are always forgetting to keep your things back.”
“Manoj, you are never on time.”
“I am always so boring and lazy.”
“Mamma, you always do this to me.”
Some might argue that this kind of thinking helps in forming patterns and making decisions. But there are big dangers in making over-generalised statements with words like
Always, All, Only, Only if, They all, Never.
- It is discouraging: Such statements not only take a toll on the present generation but put a huge pressure on the next generation. It takes a lot more courage and self-belief for them to break away from that narration. Statements like “ Girls are never good with logic, coding, or math.” “Black Americans are never hardworking and disciplined.” “You are always ready to pick fights.” adds unnecessary pressure.
Our kids are not always behaving badly or are forgetful of keeping things back in their place. Then why do we burden them with such comments? And such comments might even discourage them from putting in that effort. Our partners, our colleagues, our kids, or anyone in society could simply give up thinking “Irrespective of what I do, they will think of me in a certain way. So why even put in that effort?”. - It is hurtful: Such statements are hurtful, to say the least. If I am late or commit a mistake, and someone attributes my Indian background to it. It simply hurts. It just feels like I have let every Indian down again. This is such an avoidable pressure on people. If I commit a mistake, I commit it.
No need to bring in my religion, gender, caste, tribe, race, or country. - It is incorrect and makes it difficult for people to speak up: It is simply incorrect that “ All girls like pink.” But why do we still continue that narration? And make it difficult for many other girls who don’t like pink, to speak up or own a colour that is not pink. We are forcing choices, we are forcing opinions, we are forcing mindsets. There could be a kid/adult, who wants to express a different opinion or make a different choice. But with such statements, we are making it more difficult for people to express their differences and be themselves.
We as adults definitely need to be watchful of such thinking and usages of over-generalised statements. I think we also need to sensitize our children or friends about such usages whenever we notice them making such blanket over-generalised statements.
