“Mama, did you know Captain Cook stole Australia?”

My youngest child, O, puts this question to me as we pull into our garage in the afternoon.

Every day, O talks non-stop on the way home from kindergarten. The sound of her eager voice fills up our embarrassingly large suburban vehicle. She peppers the conversations with some leading questions for me.

Today, it is this one.

“Yes, I knew,” replies her ever-wiser older brother B. Then, because my wink in the rearview mirror reminds him to be a curious older brother, he follows with, “How did you find out?”

Her chest puffs up at the invitation to say more.

“Well, today we read a story called Somebody’s Land,” O advises, hands neatly folded in her lap. “And after we talked about it I felt very, very angry.”

Then something unusual happens: she goes very, very quiet.

I think I am an ‘ally’

Like most of my generation, I have been un-learning Australia’s history and accepting that I am a ‘settler’. I am an admirer and lifelong student of the world’s oldest living culture. I know ‘ally’ is a verb, not a noun, because to be an ally is to be active and so I cautiously call myself one. Sometimes.

I am thrilled to hear that kindergarten story-time veered toward this topic today.

“Why did you feel angry, darling?” I ask, turning off the ignition. Her little lips are pursed, her chin a wrinkle of indignation.

“Well I know stealing is bad, and he stole the land from the Ab-ridg-nal people,” she says in one big breath.

“That makes me angry too, honey,” I reply, matching her serious tone.

“No Mama, that’s not why I’m angry,” she says impatiently. Her chest heaves as significantly as her 4-year-old body can manage.

“I’m angry because I didn’t know that before. I thought the people who were first in Australia wanted Captain Cook to live here, and wanted all of us to live here.” She pauses. “But they didn’t want him to live here…and now I know that, I am just so confused.”

She inhales. “And…and it makes me wish I wasn’t even born.”

I am stunned.

O is deep in thought. Her brother B is gazing out the window thoughtfully. A heavy and very unusual silence fills the car.

I go over to open O’s passenger door and undo her seatbelt. “I’m glad you told me how you feel,” I say, hoping she will say more as I gather my thoughts.

She just shrugs and follows B into the house, shoulders drooping, her little red and blue backpack bobbing with her walk.

Important questions

Talking about Aboriginal culture and history is not new to O, nor to any of our children. Thanks to their amazing early childhood educators, they had all learned how to show respect for Aboriginal people through an acknowledgement of country and of the Traditional Owners.

All three of our children had words for this before they could write their own names. And just a few weeks earlier, we’d had a spirited dinner table conversation about National Sorry Day.

We had pondered whether we should say sorry to Aboriginal people every year, or just take a moment to remember why the Prime Minister said it into the microphone back in 2008.

Together, we had counted many more years of Aboriginal people being excluded from their own land and lifestyle (about 250) than years since Aboriginal people heard the word ‘sorry’ from our national leader (about 15).

The children agreed we should have a special day every year to remember this. Then they moved on to discuss the new Spongebob Squarepants movie.

But today was different. And, like most days of the week as a parent, I was not sure what to say or do next.

How, I wondered, can I help my children understand the way the world is now, while also exploring ways it could be different or better?

Especially given that my children, like their peers around the world, had just recently found their world very different very suddenly, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some had adapted well, most has been confused, and many are still struggling with the effects of their little lives being turned upside down.

Plus, I hold some pretty clear ideas about how the world could be better. And some strong feelings too. I felt strongly that supporting and guiding children to think critically about Australia’s first peoples was important. Logically, I’d need to put my own feelings aside to do this well.

I had recently failed badly at this.

The ‘Great’ Explorers

A few months ago, my son B had been practicing his presentation on ‘Great Explorers’ in our lounge room. He described the discoveries of Bartolomeu Dias, a Portugese mariner and explorer in the fifteenth century.

I had listened attentively and then asked a question.

“If Bartholomeus Dias found what had actually already there in Africa for centuries, and other people were living there,” I started, “then is ‘discovered’ really the right word, do you think?”

He shrugged. I continued.

“Perhaps it would be useful to do a bit more research,” I went on, “to check how he treated people when he arrived at the Horn of Africa? Even though it was probably called something else already. But he probably didn’t ask. Or maybe he ignored that.”

I became enthusiastic “Maybe we could find out who those people were? And what languages they spoke? And we can find out about how they felt when he arrived?”

If I had paused here, I might have noticed B’s face getting a little flushed, his lips pressed into a thin line. But I did not pause. I continued.

“You know how people used to think Captain Cook was a hero? Because they didn’t listen to what Aboriginal people thought about him?” I asked no one in particular, for I was no longer just addressing my son. “What if we find out something similar about Dias?”

B sighed. Which reminded me he was there. He had a pained, closed look on his 8-year-old face.

His gorgeous little frown revealed his childish need for the world to be complex, but not too complex. For there to be enough solid ground to stand on and face the day, and not have it turn to quicksand under his emotionally under-developed self.

In asking my 8-year-old to consider the possibility that the ‘great explorer’ may not be so great, or that his exploring had not been so great for everyone, I was suggesting something too big for him to immediately accept.

So I stopped there. I backed down. I told him I was proud that he had worked so hard on his project and had spoken so clearly. He nodded, his face relaxed again, and packed his project book away.

As I watched him walk down the hall, I felt like I’d let everyone down. I had failed to challenge the colonisation paradigm. Plus I’d failed to support my son’s confidence in himself.

Thanks for nothing, Bartolomeu Dias.

A story that doesn’t scare us

Now, standing in the garage watching O walk into the house, I felt stuck all over again. Was I really an ‘ally’ if I could not even guide a conversation with my own children about this?

I brooded over these troubling thoughts while I unpacked O’s blue and red backpack and chopped potatoes for dinner.

I felt a familiar surge of gratitude for the manual parenting tasks that offer hope of being good enough (at parenting), such a relief when the more abstract and complex parts of parenting elude me.

“Mama, we’ve decided,” O appears from her room. “We want salami, cheese, carrots and biscuits for our afternoon snack,” she instructs me, as if speaking to a nervous teenage waitress.

“And cucumber!” B chimes in from his bedroom.

O wrinkles her nose but doesn’t comment.

“We want you to read this book for snacktime,” she says. I nod without looking up. “We’ll be in the lounge room.”

I arrange the snack plate in a vaguely creative way and think perhaps O has moved on from her existential crisis without my help.

“Well, where is it? Where’s the book?” I ask, settling into the armchair and offering the snack plate.

Horton Hears A Who

O hands me Horton Hears a Who, one of the Dr Seuss classics, and picks out a carrot stick before she squishes in next to me. B helps himself all the cucumber and perches on the armrest.

He says, “My friend told me there is a movie of this book and she said it’s good.”

“What’s the movie about?” asks O.

“Let’s find out,” I say, getting in quick before the spoilers. I open to the first page.

In this story Horton, a particularly compassionate elephant, is shocked to hear the sounds of life coming from a tiny speck of dust. He becomes deeply committed to protecting and preserving this life, known as Who-ville, even before he has fully comprehended it or seen it with his own eyes.

Horton’s peers – including a cynical kangaroo and a bunch of cheeky monkeys – doubt and ridicule him for caring so deeply for something neither he nor they can actually see. But Horton is resolute.

My children are transfixed. They forget to chew as they ponder the incredible tininess of Who-ville.

I see them registering the amazing possibility that there are entire tiny worlds, tiny civilisations, beyond what we can immediately see, and perhaps wondering how Horton can possibly protect this tiny world.

I seize the moment.

I ask, “Why do you think Horton’s friends don’t believe in the Whos?”

O swallows a bit of cheese. “Because they haven’t seen it with their own eyes. Or heard it with their own ears.”

“I think they’re afraid,” says B, “but maybe they don’t know it yet. Maybe they think if there are tiny creatures on one speck of dust, there could be tiny creatures on every speck of dust, right?”

He goes on. “Then they couldn’t just, you know, walk through the forest or pounce on rabbits anymore.”

“Why not?” I ask, enjoying the conversation.

“Well,” he says, “the kangaroo couldn’t just bounce around on its big feet and tail, it would have to stop and listen, and think, and…be careful.” He pauses, then adds thoughtfully, “She’d have to teach her joey to be careful too.”

It’s quiet for a moment while we all consider this.

“Let’s see what Horton decides to do,” I suggest.

A person is a person

We learn that Horton did not give up. He searched through three million flowers in fact, to make sure the Whos were safe, because, “a person is a person, no matter how small”.

I sit back, silently thanking Dr Seuss.

My brooding thoughts are gone, my confidence to ask questions returned. I turn to O.

“When Horton discovered the Whos for the first time,” I say carefully, “and he realised they’d been there all along, did he wish he wasn’t born?”

She looks sideways and taps her chin.

“Actually, no,” she says decisively, “because if he wasn’t born, he wouldn’t be there to hear the Whos and tell the others about them. He couldn’t have done anything to help look after them at all.”

“Yeah, it’s funny,” says B, “Horton seems like the most important character in this story, but he sort of used that to make the Whos more important than himself. Like, he sort of put himself second, in a way.”

I am beaming, perhaps a little strangely.

We don’t need to fact-check Bartolomeu Dias. I don’t need to coach my pre-schooler in turning her existential guilt into meaningful action.

It’s right here. Thanks to Horton, we are right now exploring how to face the discomfort of our own ignorance, and considering how to move differently in the world after that.

I hurry to think of ways to prolong this moment of wonder. “How about we watch the movie of Horton on the weekend?” I say.

There are nods all around.

“I really admire Horton,” I say lightly, knowing I only have a few moments left now the book is closed and the video games are calling.

“Me too,” says O, “he was very brave.”

“Me too,” says B, “he’s kind of like a great explorer, but in reverse.”

“Like, he discovered something great,” he continues, “but like, he didn’t try to take it over or anything, he just helped it to…I don’t know…he just helped it to be.”

I want to throw my arms around him, but I hold back.

He turns to O. “Want to come outside with me? We can look for tiny creatures in the grass.”

As they head for the door I hear her ask, “What will we do with the creatures? Should we get a box?”

“No need,” B says cheerfully, “we’ll just watch them crawl around. Do you know why?”

Cue the cute, knowing smile. “Because a person is a person, no matter how small.”