Let children be children

Today we traveled as the locals did in a collectivo, a communal van with the cost shared by all passengers, to a city nearby called San Juan Chamula. San Juan is located about 11km outside of San Cristobal de las Casas and is widely known for the indigenous peoples’ unique style of religious worship.

When we arrived in this city of San Juan it looked different than San Cristobal. The streets weren’t as crowded, the venders not so frequent. The population was made up of almost all indigenous people and there were next to no mestizo Mexicans. There were no local foreigners living there that we saw but there were busloads of northern tourists who showed up in packs, many cameras and flashy things in hand. Things weren’t as clean in San Juan and you could tell there wasn’t nearly as much wealth as there was in the nearby city of San Cristobal.

No matter where we were in San Juan, the market, the Zocalo (town square), the street corner, on a bench or in front of the church, we would be approached by children and asked to buy something . These children were street venders and beggars, much like their parents and rely greatly on tourism as a form of survival.

Children ranging age 5 and up would approach you, carrying their two-year-old sibling on their back and would ask you for un peso or to buy their goods. It can be a heartbreaking thing, to see someone who is so young and could have so many possibilities, stand before you and ask you for something and not know if you can give it to them.

When it comes to street children it’s difficult. You want to support them because you feel for them, but if you do, in many ways you are prolonging this way of life for them, where they must beg. When children are sent out on the streets and come home with money, it is an indication to their parents that this is working and they will be sent out again the next day. Not because their parents want to or believe this is the best place for their children but because this is a way of life and in many cases the only way to guarantee their survival. When children are successful in this, the cycle is perpetuated and many of these children grow up never going to school, never knowing how to read or write, not knowing anything other than begging.

It’s difficult because you feel if you do not give them that peso, you are partly responsible for their circumstance and for their suffering. But if you do, suddenly there are two kids, now three, now ten. Now they are grabbing at you and pulling on each other. People grow angry and now you are smack dab in the middle of conflict, often in a language you don’t understand and sometimes with adults in regards to their children whom you have been engaging with. It can very quickly and unexpectedly escalate and become a very negative and dangerous situation.

In the end, wither you do or do not is personal choice and it is always a difficult decision. It is an extremely sensitive and complex topic and there is no right or wrong answer. I have realized as much as you cannot fix situations like this with money, pity does not help either. These children and their families they do not want, nor deserve, our pity. They deserve our respect and our acknowledgment. Instead of feeling bad because they are begging and we are unable to help, think about what the real problem is, not with the individual, but with the societal system that is meant to protect and support the people. Think of how this has happened, why it is so common and what can and is being done about it.

It’s an interesting contrast, children from the north and from the south. They play completely different roles in society and yet at the end of a day, a child is always still a child. We feel bad for and pity these young people who must work the streets, with no shoes in their dirty clothes, but they are doing it for survival in order to provide the essentials, because this is their way of life.

We must not be so hypocritical to think that this is something that only happens in Mexico, this is happening around the world in every country, including Canada and the United States. We may not have 5 and 10 year olds begging strangers on the streets for money, but instead we have them begging their parents and grandparents in the aisles of the grocery store. We have children who throw tantrums because they can’t have that third doll or because they didn’t get exactly what they wanted for Christmas or for their birthday. People say to children all the time, “stop acting like a dog, don’t beg.” Yet this need for more continues to grow and children continue to be unsatisfied with what they have and the need for more extends. Many Northerners don’t know how to express our love and appreciation without materialistic things, we feel if we do not purchase the biggest and best we are not expressing our value and love for one another.

We have grown cold.

We may not have children begging on the streets for survival, but we have them begging in the toy store for items of luxury, isn’t this worse?