by Hailee Barnes
NNPCW Coordinating Committee member

I had a great conversation with one of my bosses from this summer on Monday of this week. I worked at a YMCA day camp in Seattle last summer and at the biannual staff meeting for our YMCA branch the branch executive director asked any of us camp staff to meet with her if at any time we had questions about the YMCA, careers at the YMCA, or wanted to chat about life in general. So I emailed Lonnie a few weeks ago and asked if week could meet and on Monday we met in her office, once she had determined that I had a sufficient amount of questions and we would be spending a while together she asked if I wanted to go to a coffee shop down the street. We walked into the greatest den of a coffee shop--it was a great place!

Among updating her on my current life events and reminiscing about this summer we discussed a lot about the YMCA, why she works there, why I was attracted to working there, and clarifying what is it that really interests me and that I am passionate about. One thing that I care a great deal about is children and their right to education, an enriching and safe environment, the opportunities to succeed, and being treated with respect. Lonnie responded by telling me a short story about an event that she helped organize for senior citizens at the Y. They invited seniors and families for a luncheon where there was food and music, basically a time to be together. She received little feedback as this was a rather ordinary event, but the feedback that she did receive from a few seniors was that they did not like the children there and that next time there should be no children there. I had heard of instances like this before, but had never really thought about it. Why is it ok and accepted when people say “I don’t like children, I don’t want them around”. Children are people! If this was said about women, Hispanics, Blacks, deaf people… it would not be tolerated, so why is it tolerated when said about children? I understand that some children can be rude or distracting in social situations, but shouldn’t the point be to educate the children and teach them how to behave rather than say you do not like them and don’t want them there?

At our leadership event this past summer we focused on ageism from a perspective of the gap between college and young women to older women of our parents and grandparents age, but we did not focus so much on children. What are your thoughts about this? I will start a discussion about this in the Cybercafe,, I would love to hear your thoughts.