Space to Dream

A young Honduran girl named Gabby, nine years old, stands in a circle of her fellow students and begins giving orders. 

“You, stand there. Emilio, you’re next in line, and then Sofia. You – over there – take these papers and hand them out to everyone else . . .” 

The teacher stands to the side, clearly used to having Gabby direct the class. 

A few hours later, Gabby stands tall over a circle of younger children in her grandmother’s compound. As she cares for the very youngest of the group, she entertains the others with games, jokes and stories, reprimanding them for their impoliteness one moment and complimenting them on their marble skills the next. 

Gabby’s leadership skills are as obvious as her quick wit and her mischievous smile, and it’s clear that the adults in her life – her parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles and cousins that constitute the rich community life of a small Honduran village – recognize her significant place in their community, affirming her with small tasks around the compound and teasing her with elbows, winks and jokes. 

FEW DOORS
Early one evening, I sat with Gabby’s parents. We talked about their life, their community, our thoughts about our countries. I have three young children of my own, so our conversation turned to the universal concerns of parents: bedtimes, school systems, our mutual distaste for Peppa Pig. 

I asked them about their dreams for their daughter Gabby, and they looked at each other, falling silent, before her mother, Haity, answered. 

“We try not to dream for too much for our daughter. We know who she is, what she’s capable of. But we have to remember where we’re from, how little we have, the few doors that will open for her.”

I didn’t know what to say or how to respond. I felt sheepish for what I see now as an insensitive question – insensitive to the hard realities of economic poverty on a mother and father. 

I was also surprised. I’ve spent a good part of my student and working life thinking about poverty and working with poor communities. But I had never thought about how poverty and injustice shape a parent’s life. I’d never considered in any real way – a flesh-and-blood, my-shoes-in-their-shoes way – how life in a marginal community can change the way we dream about our children’s futures.  

Gabby’s parents know what their daughter is capable of, the role she can play in their community’s future. Yet in that moment they seemed, by a heroic and tragic act of will, to resist the risk of hope. They would not allow themselves to imagine too much for her future, for fear she – and they – would be disappointed.

SPACE TO DREAM
Like most parents I know, Gabby’s parents want their daughter to flourish, to be who she is created to be, to explore her gifts in ways that bring beauty and goodness to the world around her. They know, as we all know, that life throws all sorts of things at us, things that can alter our journeys and change our paths for good and for ill. But childhood is a time for dreaming, and being a parent of a young child means creating space to dream. The strain in Gabby’s mother’s face made it clear that being “realistic” about her daughter’s future was a source of pain. It was, to steal someone else’s phrase, so obviously not the way things are supposed to be. 

Such is the tragic note that poverty plays for parents in poor communities: believing that the world may not have space for your child’s dreams. Unjust governments, exclusive economic policy, the daily tasks of making a life where work and water and electricity and schooling are scarce: so many things seem to join forces to dampen your hope. 

Part of my privilege as a parent in a healthy community in Canada is that I do not feel the need to deny my children their dreams. I am free to dream, and to let my children dream. 

Gustavo Gutierrez, the theologian and friend of the poor in Latin America, sometimes refers to poverty as a form of “unfreedom,” an “anti-liberation,” because it creates bondage where there should be freedom. For parents in poor communities, one aspect of the “unfreedom” of poverty may be the sense that they are not free to dream all they’d like to dream for their children. 

RISKY HOPE
Speaking with Gabby’s parents, it made me appreciate the audacity of those in poor communities who are willing to act (and parent) with hope. Indigenous Canadians who shepherd their children through a broken school system because they know that their children are as capable of being doctors and master electricians and playwrights as anyone else. Fearless Hondurans with Association for a More Just Society who fight for a more transparent education system because they know the future of their country lies in part in the dreams of young girls and boys who can shape a different vision for their country. God’s future of shalom is made visible, in part, when we encounter parents who are willing to resist the powers affecting their lives and imagine a world where their children can open any door they please, regardless of where they were born. 

I think often of Gabby’s parents as I drop off and pick up my oldest daughter from her Grade One classroom. I think often of Gabby, and her future. What a strange and troubling world, where some parents seem to have so much more freedom to dream dreams for their children than others. It can break your heart.

What a strange and heartbreaking world, and what a strange and weighty task for us in the church: to follow the Lord who said “Blessed are you who weep – whose hearts are broken – for you will laugh.”As the bell rings and I find my way to my daughter’s classroom, I think to myself: blessed are those parents who weep over their children’s futures, for one day you will dream.