Book Review: Trust Kids!

 

Image: The cover of the book is a navy blue background with a painting of large flowers growing upward with pink and purple petals and green stems. In the yellow center of the lower flower are lots of small figures of people playing. In the center of the upper flower is a blue tower. There are dandelion seeds scattered over the cover with people holding onto them, riding the wind. Across the top in large white letters is "Trust Kids!" Below that in small white letters is "stories on youth autonomy and confronting adult supremacy." At the bottom in very small letters is "Edited by carla joy bergman, Forword by Matt Hern."

Trust Kids, edited by carla joy bergman, is a collection of essays, poetry, interviews, and artwork by adults, kids, and whoever else is in between. The book offers a lot of thought provoking information to those of us who have grown up entrenched in adult supremacy and ageism (i.e. most of if not all of us.) They state in the introduction that this is not meant to be a parenting manual or a group of examples of how perfect parent and other adults got everything "right." Nonetheless, it does offer a lot of perspective shifting content that could help with those things. It did seem a like they could have reached further with the call for submissions. There were lots of repeat contributors, many from the editor's family and friends, (and two white rappers, what are the odds?) giving the book a bit more of a limited scope. But, that does not mean I did not get a lot out of it. 

Going into a book about trusting kids was a strange experience and an emotional one. I am a person who generally looks back on my youth with uneasiness at best. As a kid, I struggled immensely, was taken advantage of frequently, and really believed adult men when they told me I was "mature." I didn't think I should have been "trusted." When some authors suggested kids were as knowledgeable as adults, and that they could govern their own lives, I was baffled. As I read on though, I repeatedly was forced to revise what I thought was true.

In the end, what I gained from this book were convincing arguments that not trusting kids actually makes things much easier for predators and much harder for kids (and the adults who care for them.) When children and youth are considered, listened to, included, and allowed to govern their own lives within supportive communities, they are more likely to be open and honest about their needs, wants, and questions they may have. They are more likely to push past the shame or uneasiness if something bad has happened, rather than hiding it like so many kids do. They are also going to feel safer telling adults about their lives and will be far more receptive to adults who have treated them like human beings expressing their concerns. 

I am not a poetry person, so I never feel that I can say whether poetry is "good" because I usually don't "get" any of it. I really loved the visual art in this book. The interviews/conversations were hit or miss, but I really enjoyed "Creating a Web of Intergenerational Trust," by Maya Motoi in conversation with her parents in Japan. The academic leaning (but still accessibly written) essays near the end by Tobey Rollo and Stacey Patton were some of my favorites and brought in theoretical frameworks I had not encountered before. I am team "Magneto was right," so I was happy to see an essay featuring him as the true hero (even if I wanted more from it.) The best entry in the book though was Uilliam Joy Bergman's "Hold on to Your Child (Within.)" I am glad that they put it into the book early, because it really showed me a 17 year old who knows more than I do about a lot of things, helping me trust the process of the rest of the book.

The only thing I disliked about this book was the representation of mental health/illness, particularly in one interview/conversation - "Four Q's and a Poem" - that seemed clearly scripted by the adult involved in order to highlight themself. I was part of organizing a local Icarus Project chapter years back. I favor Mad Pride movements and understand very well the many abuses in and problems with psychiatry. But, this entry made mental illness seem like some voluntary acid trip or cosplay. I have come to believe that the truth lies somewhere between psychiatry and people who claim mental illness is just a personality quirk. When your loved one is living with unrelenting, torturous paranoid psychosis causing them to live in a disoriented hellscape and act accoringly, when you know someone with foster kids whose minds have been mangled by trauma, and when you know personally what it's like to have the sickest parts of your mind control you, the horrors are far more real. Basically, there are much better sources for understanding trauma and mental health struggle in youth and adults than whatever this was- including ones from founders of The Icarus Project.

Trust Kids! is an important collection that offers up ideas for a better world where each of us comes into it as a whole person, not one to be molded by adults (who apparently finished becoming whole people at some undefined point.) There aren't many books like this that approach these topics with diverse perspectives and great passion. I don't think I have ever read a book about liberating kids that is written in part by actual kids, and that's a real problem. I hope this sparks future conversations for all of our sakes. 

This was also posted to my goodreads.