Jane Ganahl was a journalist for 25 years with Hearst newspapers in San Francisco before co-founding the Litquake festival, where she served as director until 2023. Her essays have appeared in five anthologies, including one she edited; she now teaches classes in personal essay throughout the Bay Area. https://janeganahl.com
“If you eat hot dogs that means you eat animals,” my 8-year-old granddaughter says to a neighbor child as they draw at my kitchen table. The little girl looks baffled, and then indignant.
“I do not,” she insists, pouting.
“What do you think hot dogs are made of?” my progeny persists. “Pigs. Did you know pigs are as smart as dogs?”
Our guest’s lower lip begins to tremble and I realize this play date is about to go south. I intervene with a gentle reminder that everyone gets to choose what they eat.
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But the truth is, my California heart is bursting with pride. My granddaughter has heard and taken to heart things that I’ve told her about why I’ve been a vegetarian for 50 years and seems inclined to follow suit.
Grandparents come pre-programmed to share life lessons – or what we imagine them to be – and to want to influence the young people we love for the better. My personal messaging as a grandparent has been fairly innocuous: Everyone should be treated equally, girls can do anything, be kind to animals (and don’t eat them if possible), going to church is not required to be a good person, be grateful for what you have and understand that not everyone is so lucky, respect your elders, and if Nama says it’s time for bed, she doesn’t mean tomorrow.
Still, as a lifelong Californian raised to at least attempt to see all points of view, I’m acutely aware that my common-sense and compassionate life lessons could be viewed as wacko left-wing brainwashing by many. Even by some in my own extended family.
I’ve never told my granddaughter she has to refrain from eating animals; after all, in many parts of the world, eating animals is what stands between humans and starvation. I also note that this isn’t true here in California, and that plants give us all the nutrition we need. But it’s still brainwashing of a sort. Perhaps a kinder, gentler, California-approved form of Indoctrination Lite?
I’ve also discussed with my granddaughter why I don’t go to a church across the street (“They don’t believe gay people should get married,” I explain; “That’s so lame!” she responds), what Labor Day is about (I believe I heard snoring), and why the Trump administration targets minorities and people new to this country. “I think it’s about fear and dislike of people that don’t look like us,” I say. She looks both angry and sad, perhaps thinking of her many besties of color.
Still, as hard as it is to keep our opinions to ourselves when the world is going to hell in a handbasket (and it’s so clear who’s to blame), I do believe in facilitating her making up her own mind about things. To quote scientist and renowned atheist Richard Dawkins, “Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you.”
Jane Ganahl
I do try. Maybe that’s what separates me from one side of my family.
My mother was one of five kids in a Southern fundamentalist Christian family. The rest of her siblings stayed in the South; but my mother, the family rebel, went to college, became a Pan Am stewardess and moved with my pilot dad to the Bay Area when the airline transferred him to San Francisco. She raised us to question authority, love nature and seek a gentler version of God than the strict and vindictive one she was raised with.
Summer visits with our Southern family reminded me how glad I was to be raised in California. Here, our youthful influences ran the gamut from various religions to animal rights to free speech and nonviolence movements. In high school I went to demonstrations against the Vietnam War and meetings at Kepler’s bookstore, a hub of activism in Menlo Park. Similar to what happened in recent weeks, I was part of a student walkout.
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I tell the short person this, and she looks puzzled. “What was everyone so mad at?” I talk about the war in Vietnam and how boys my age were getting drafted and getting killed by the tens of thousands. (Interestingly, she already knew what the draft was.) “Did you get drafted?” she asks. I tell her girls were not allowed to go and fight. She is thoughtful: “Maybe that was good, because you didn’t die.”
I resist the urge to pile on and tell her some of the other numbers: In addition to 58,000 American military deaths, there were between 1 million and 3 million Vietnamese killed. I feel less ambivalent about sharing opinions on what a dreadful mistake that war was, as history seems to be on the side of that reality.
I do not mention the new number, two deaths in Minneapolis, because all attempts at objectivity would fail. Still, I know someday a distance will be gained, anguish will be lessened and perspectives will emerge like flowering spring bulbs. And when that day comes, we’ll talk about it.
