Still pledging allegiance? Really?
On questioning "traditions". On the immigrant dilemma. On a six year old's wisdom.
A reaction worth having (or not)
I’m driving kids to school. Suddenly my six year old starts reciting the pledge of allegiance. The car imperceptibly swerves as I silently loose my shit. But instead of crashing into the nearby trees, I ask: “Hey - where did you learn that?” Before my six year old manages to respond, my four year old chimes in: “Oh, I also know this.”
Turns out, six and four year olds reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at school every day is still the norm where we live.
To say that I had a “reaction” is a gross understatement. There are so many layers to this multi-day freak out which promptly ensued. I had a whole other essay I’ve been working on that was supposed to go out this week, but I was compelled, like really really needed to unpack this instead.
A nation that hangs on a pledge-thread
America has a long, complicated history. Much of that history consisted of slavery and pillage and exploitation. In fact, America continues to do really-not-that-much about racism, misogyny, cult of guns, soulless capitalism. Pledging allegiance to America, to its flag, feels to me like blind loyalty to something fundamentally wrong and broken. Instead of changing things, pledging to the flag says to me “don’t question, don’t challenge, just comply”. It feels like promising loyalty to the worst parts of America.
Maybe that’s actually why U.S. policymakers continue to prescribe daily brainwashing to its youngest minds. As if the country’s continued existence - it’s sustenance even - depended on everyone pledging loyalty to all that America stands for. As if any attempt at questioning, independent thinking, or dissenting would result in America’s demise. It feels like the daily recitation is required in order for this country to function.
No kid at the age of four or six is able to understand the complexity of what the pledge stands for. It’s so layered, I barely understand it. More disconcertingly, I don’t think any four or six year old even understands ~80% of the words used in the pledge. It’s just not in their vocabulary yet.
A refresher in case the pledge isn’t emblazoned in your brain until the end of time: “I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
What is allegiance? What is a republic? What is a nation? Who is god? What does indivisible mean? What is liberty? What is justice?
Not to mention all the other more complex questions that this pledge - I’d argue - should spark for any critical thinker out there. What does it mean to stand for a republic? Is there really just one nation contained in this vast country? Why does a nation stand under a god? Who is part of the “all” for whom justice and liberty are a reality? Are the states really united?
And don’t even get me started on the whole “hand on heart, facing the flag”.
We are god
I asked my older kid what she understood from the pledge. She said she understood the part about a god. So I asked her what god was (believe me when I say we have never had that conversation before…) She answered that “god were the people who protect mother earth, and since we are good to mother earth god is us.” We are god. Hats off, kiddo. My meditation teachers would be so tickled by a six year olds innate and impeccable grasp on the concept of non-duality. Atman is Brahman. IYKYK.
While my daughter clearly is wise beyond her years, this was the best I got out of her on the meaning of the pledge. So why is the educational system force-feeding children a pledge they have absolutely no ability to consent to, with full understanding? Why are public schools teaching children oblivious obedience? “Oh you don’t have to understand what any of this means just put your hand on the heart, look at the flag, and promise your undying loyalty to it” Why are our educators assuming that children don’t deserve the courtesy of deciding something for themselves, when they have grasped it? How is a pledge still a pledge when there’s an implied expectation that all children in a classroom must oblige? Is it a pledge or is it a recital? Is it making an actual commitment to an idea greater than yourself or is it just good old brainwashing?
I asked my daughter if she thought it was a good idea to promise something she didn’t understand. She thought it wasn’t. We don’t break promises in our family.
When a “why?” doesn’t have an answer
As an immigrant, whose children hold three passports, pledging allegiance to a country we live in now (not forever!) feels fundamentally wrong. I wouldn’t even pledge allegiance to my home country, Poland, if given the opportunity. The fact that my multicultural children are made to conform to this old-school rule of Connecticut’s Board of Education feels insensitive. Nobody asked us if we wanted them to participate. I was told this is a “tradition” by the preschool principal whom I asked point blank: why are four year olds made to do the pledge? To her credit: she was pretty open minded, and her first response was “I am not sure why we do this…”, while her follow-up consisted of a promise to explain to children what different concepts in the pledge mean.
I also polled a random parent from that same pre-school classroom. Her response: “Well, we all exist under the protections this pledge offers.” To which I really wanted to respond: “Protections? What protections are you referring to? I’d go out on a limb that most people in this country don’t feel protected. They feel either vigilant or violated. Do you think a black man feels protected in this country? Is the 82 cents to a dollar every woman makes compared to a man, a form of protection? Are the abortion bans in the majority of states a form of protection?” For obvious reasons, I stop myself from unleashing this word vomit onto her. I also make a very rapid judgment call about who she voted for in the last elections, which then I proceed to feel terrible about. Then again, I’m pretty sure she made a bilateral judgment about me. So maybe it’s fine.
It’s definitely about me and I give no f***s
All the mutual judgment later, I feel sad, angry, lonely. Am I the only human in this part of New England who doesn’t think it’s a good idea for kids to pledge allegiance to the flag that has blood dripping from it? A pledge that has hypocrisy written into it? A friend asked me if this is about the kids or if this is about me. What a great question.
Some part of me is clearly triggered when authority figures (schools, governments, etc.) try to force something onto my children, and by extension onto me. That part of me gets really riled up. There’s anger there. It’s definitely about me, I tell my friend. And how I want my children to questions assumptions, to be analytical, to be thoughtful and intentional. To never feel slighted, wide-eyed, or ignorant, which I have felt at times as an immigrant across countries and cultures, more than I’d like to admit. It’s probably also about me in that it makes me feel brazen to call all of this out. Ego boost for sure.
To be clear, I don’t hate America. I chose to live here. I continue to choose to live here. Despite all of its bigotry, hypocrisy and historical erasure. Despite the cult of productivity, the hustle, the workism culture. Despite a fundamental lack of social support or community-mindedness. Despite its spin on capitalism and imperialism. I’m still here. Perhaps that is precisely why I choose to be here. Because I can stand out with my opinions - like this one - in a sea of sameness and compliance.
Immigrant-driven non-conformity
Digging into controversies surrounding the pledge, I found that in 2006 in Florida (yes, of all places, in Florida) a federal court deemed the pledge of allegiance recitation in schools, in violation of the first and fourteenth amendments (Frazier vs Alexandre case). Why are much more progressive, blue states like Connecticut where we live, behind one of the most conservative and reddest? Conformity is a bitch. From the principal at our elementary school, I learned that this isn't her first time fielding these questions from parents. Apparently it’s a topic that has come up at the town’s Board of Education meetings before, but hasn’t materialized into a state-level petition that would actually have a shot at changing the existing law.
Guess who emailed her town’s selectman to do something about it? Yes, the Polish immigrant who can’t even vote in this country and who really shouldn’t give a crap, yet somehow does. I care that my kids and all the other kids have a chance at growing into independent thinkers, who don’t just recite, who instead inquire and aim to understand, before deciding for themselves what they promise and to whom.
P.S. A few days post-pledge-drama, my six year old told me that her classroom bestie asked her why she’s not reciting the pledge. (Which BTW I did not tell her to do) Her response: “because it’s old school, it was something schools did a long time ago and no longer should.” The bestie decided that if that’s the case she’s not saying the pledge either. And today I was told another friend joined in. There’s a small “pledge revolt” happening in room 146 at our local elementary. And honestly even though she wouldn’t question any of this herself, nor would she ever know what “old school” means if it weren’t for my use of it, in the context of the pledge… I am still beaming with pride. Because this is how I try my best at ingraining critical thinking into my kid, when the school system fails to.
The Practice
What’s a long-held belief or habit at your work, in your family, in your community, or within you that you haven’t questioned before? Investigate.
Question For You
Answer all or any or don’t answer at all. Choose your own adventure. Let’s try this thing called “comments”.
Anything ever bothered you for a difficult-to-explain reason? What was it?
What part of this whole “pledging allegiance” thing am I not seeing? Is there a point of view I should consider?
If you could re-write the pledge of allegiance from scratch, if you had a blank slate… What would be in that pledge?
What do you remember about saying the pledge every day in school, when you were a kid?
If you’re an immigrant, what are your feelings about the pledge?
What are your thoughts - any thoughts really, big and small, short and long, praise or criticism - about this essay?
Random Collection of Things
🍒 Amble is labor of love. I do it because I enjoy it. I frankly don’t expect anyone to read this, but if they do and they find a source of inspiration or insight in my words - that’s my “cherry on top”. This quote from a Jesuit priest Anthony de Mello really resonated with me.
"You must cultivate activities that you love. You must discover work that you do, not for its utility, but for itself, whether it succeeds or not, whether you are praised for it or not, whether you are loved and rewarded for it or not, whether people know about it and are grateful to you for it or not. How many activities can you count in your life that you engage in simply because they delight you and grip your soul? Find them out, cultivate them, for they are your passport to freedom and to love."
Source: The Way to Love
📱 As someone who quit social media almost 5 years ago (and has had a recent complicated relapse), I loved this
piece on the one thing we all hate and yet still do. It’s equal parts funny and terrifying. Putting up a mirror to the tech addiction insanity.
🧘♂️ Courtesy of
I stumbled across this quote from Nicola Jane Hobbs, and was really tickled.Growing up, I never knew a relaxed woman. Successful women? Yes. Productive women? Plenty. Anxious and afraid and apologetic women? Heaps of them. But relaxed women? At-ease women? Women who don’t dissect their days into half hour slots of productivity? Women who prioritize rest and pleasure and play? Women who aren’t afraid to take up space in the world? Women who give themselves unconditional permission to relax? Without guilt? Without apology? Without feeling like they need to earn it? I’m not sure I’ve ever met a woman like that. But I would like to become one.
🍃😬 And a reminder that I want to be kind, instead of nice. From
of Farnam Street.Too often, the people we ask for feedback are nice but not kind. Kind people will tell you things a nice person will not. A kind person will tell you that you have spinach on your teeth. A nice person won’t because it’s uncomfortable. A kind person will tell us what holds us back, even when it’s uncomfortable. A nice person avoids giving us critical feedback because they’re worried about hurting our feelings.