On September 23, I took five 10-year-old girls to the NAMI Walks-Chicago, an event co-sponsored by NAMI CCNS and NAMI Greater Chicago. Two of them were my daughters, who are very well aware of what mental illness means and why we were walking. Another child's mother had spoken to her for the first time about mental illness in her family. A fourth girl thought mental illness was the same as profound developmental disabilities. The other girls corrected her thinking on our drive down to the walk. Finally, the fifth child has a severely mentally ill aunt; she said that she was walking for her.
The girls all made colored paper shoes to pin to the bulletin board at the Walk's launching point. Some of their lovingly decorated shoes were meant to memorialize my brother who died and the other who is sick, some for the other little girl's aunt. They then marched every foot of that three mile walk. They were hot, with hurting feet, and exhausted by the end. They saw a number of people taking a short cut that would have significantly reduced their effort. All five children refused to do so, saying that they wanted to walk every foot for those who are ill.
Along the route, we talked about the meaning of stigma, why some people who are ill smoke, and that many times you can't tell if someone is sick just by looking at them. They were exceedingly proud of themselves when they finished the route and collapsed on a hill in the shade.
For me, the moral to the story is this: if we can capture children while they are still open, curious, and full of the idealism of youth, their generation just might finally put stigma in its proper place - in the trash along with yesterday's stories of Britney Spears.
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