Families Belong Together

by Sachi Feris

Inspired by Stand for Kids and A Striving Parent, I asked my six-year-old daughter and two-and-a-half-year-old son whether they might like to make rice krispie treats to raise money for immigrant children who have been separated from their families. All my two-and-a-half-year-old heard was “rice krispie treats” and “give away” which led to an emphatic “No.” My daughter, however, agreed that it was a good idea and after making it clear that we would also be able to eat a rice krispie treat, my son voluntarily helped us put each portion into a ziplock bag.

Once downstairs, my son declared that these rice krispie treats were not for us but for “other people,” which I affirmed and added that the money we got from selling them would go to children and their parents who were immigrants and who needed our support because they were not being treated fairly.

“Because of Donald Trump,” he told me. Ironically, I had just a few minutes earlier commented to a neighbor (whose son was helping with the rice krispie treat endeavor) that my two-and-a-half-year-old didn’t have as much language as my daughter had had at this age, and hence, our conversations were different than those I was having with my daughter at his age…but clearly he had been listening!

Meanwhile, my daughter became a bit shy in approaching our neighbors, following the lead of our neighbor/friend, an older child, and only towards the end chiming in and telling potential donors that the money was for “children who had been separated from their parents.” (As a side bar, our neighbor/friend’s mom and I decided to match our children’s donations in support of immigrant children with a donation to Black Lives Matter in recognition of our country’s long and shameful history of family separations.)

In the midst of this rice krispie treat donation-collecting, my family has been intimately involved in watching the World Cup, as my husband is an avid soccer fan (and an Argentine). Both my older children have taken Argentina’s losses (one game and a temporary tie that would have resulted in disqualification) very personally, with my son claiming “Papi triste!” (Papi sad!) and real tears running down my daughter’s face.

Today, we went out to lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant and, both because my husband happened to be born in Mexico and because we have spent a lot of time in Mexico, my daughter started to get equally upset about Mexico’s loss. I returned to my calming mantra of “This is just a game. Unfortunately, there are a lot more very sad things going on in the world than losing a soccer game.”

And then I added: “And you know how we were raising money to help immigrant children who had been separated from their families? Well, a lot of them are Mexican–and I bet if you asked most Mexicans if they would rather Mexico win or have all the children who had been separated and put in detention centers (like prisons) back with their parents…they would want children to be back with their parents.”

Later in the day, when miraculously both my younger children were napping, I told my daughter about something I had read on a local moms’ listserv about “a woman from Guatemala named Yeni who came to the United States with her three children but was detained and was in a place called Arizona but her three children were brought to NYC. And there is a group of people who are trying to raise money to get Yeni out of the detention center and bring her to NYC so she can be with her children.” I asked her if she would like to donate the money from the rice krispie treats to this woman to help her get back to her children.

My daughter liked the idea so we went online and made the donation–and then found an address to which children were being encouraged to write letters to Yeni and her children. My daughter decided her words would read, “Bienvenidos Yeni y sus hijos. Soy —-. Quiero ser tu amiga. (Welcome Yeni and her children. I am —-. I want to be your friend.) I asked my daughter if she would like me to take a picture of her letter and share on the internet so other people could hear about Yeni and her children. She affirmed. Please consider supporting Yeni and this grassroots’ effort now.

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