Kids Peace Song

Simple enough for adults to understand!

As adults and parents, we are role-models. What we do is watched very carefully and copied by others around us, especially children. They watch how we treat other members of our family. They pay close attention to how we resolve disputes, … sometimes peacefully, sometimes not so much. Many of us work to find non-violent ways to solve our problems, rather than fight or use violence, and the children notice what we do. When we commit to finding peaceful resolutions for each dispute, the better chance we all have of living in a world without wars.

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Kids Peace Song

Cho: People come in diff’rent sizes            F-C7

Colors, shapes and names                            F-C7

Tho’ we're diff’rent on the outside             F-C7-F-Bb

Inside I think we’re the same!                     F-C7-

Sometimes happy, sometimes sad               F-Bb

Scared or silly, mean or mad                        F-C7

Feelings you have, I have too,                      F-Bb-F

We’re not so diff’rent me and you.               F-C7-F

I’ll bet you have ideas like me                       Bb-F

Our brains are built the same, you see?       C7-F-F7

And if I understand you right,                       Bb-F

We both love peaceful sleep at night             C7

Chorus

We love to laugh and play and run

And we would never start a war

We’re all afraid of bombs and guns

We know that one fight leads to more.

Our country says we must be ready

For a fight, no matter where

Even though that might be right,

It makes the other countries scared

Chorus

It’s time to try a diff’rent way

Where fighting isn’t in the plan

We can be strong without our bombs

It’s time that all the bombs were banned

Kids like us live everywhere

Around the world, in ev’ry land

The words we speak are not the same

But ‘Peace on Earth’ we understand!

Chorus/ Chorus

by Peter Alsop, ©1986, Moose School Music (BMI)

www.peteralsop.com

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My granddaughter Quinnlyn shows us the chorus with American Sign Language

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Twenty years ago I received an invitation to join a ‘think-tank’ on world population. We’d meet annually on Martha’s Vineyard with Mal Jones and Carol Koury-Jones, a feminist couple who organized our group, ‘Up The River Endeavors’. Our membership was more than seventy per cent women by design, and among other things, we studied the culture of female-led Bonobo groups in the Congo that are significantly less violent than similar male-led groups of Chimpanzees. It was at one of our meetings that I met Dr. Judith Hand, an American evolutionary biologist, animal behaviorist and a novelist, and we became friends. She gave me her book, “Women, Power and the Biology of Peace” when it came out.

“Your book is wonderful!’ I told her.

“Thanks!” she said, “I’m a bit disappointed because I had to publish it myself. A couple of big publishers loved it. They said the science and subject matter was great, but their marketing departments thought it would be a ‘tough sell’, because most people don’t believe it’s possible to have a world without war.”

“People didn’t think we could end slavery either. I think it’s possible.”

“So do I,” she said. “But I also believe that humans will always struggle! We have our moments of glory and kindness and love and peace, but we seem to struggle all the time. We argue. We do selfish, mean-spirited, angry and harmful things to each other, men AND women. So, I’m not sure if humans will ever have a completely ‘peaceful’ future, but I do know it’s possible for us to have a world without war! War is not genetic, it’s a learned behavior.” Judith’s most recent book is “War and Sex and Human Destiny”. Check out her :17 minute video when you get a chance!

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I’ve been opposed to war, … or using violence to solve a problem for years. It’s not easy commit to finding non-violent ways to live.

In 1969 when the war in Vietnam was raging, I was very worried about my friends and classmates who had been drafted and were stationed over there. I applied for status as a Conscientious Objector with my Local Draft Board in Connecticut. They turned me down. I appealed to the State Board and was again turned down, and classified ‘1A’.  That meant I could be drafted at any moment into the Army.

I wasn’t going to run to Canada, so my last hope was to apply to Nixon’s Presidential Appeal Board. After weeks of waiting, I was notified that they had reviewed my file, … and they agreed that I was a conscientious objector! I was really glad to get that classification, although I still had a service obligation to perform some ‘alternative service’ if the draft called me up. I immediately wrote to my Local Board to get approval for my current job as ‘alternative service’. I was teaching second and third grade ‘special needs’ kids in the South Bronx. My local Board was very unhappy with me, … having had their prior decision overturned by the President! They said, “No!” They really wanted me to empty bedpans at the State Mental hospital for my ‘alternative service’, … but fortunately, my draft lottery number was high, and I was never called. I happily continued to teach my kids.

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It was at this same time in my life that I learned another, very important lesson about creating a peaceful society.

After a long day in the classroom, and a forty-minute ride on the NY subway back to my one room, fourth floor walk-up in Manhattan, … there was a knock on my door. It was my neighbor.

“Hey man. Listen. I have a guy staying with me who’s a member of ‘The Weathermen’. You know who they are?”

I’d heard about the ‘Weathermen’ from Bob Dylan’s ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ song, where he sings, “You don’t need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows!” They were a group of politically active young men who moved from place to place with hidden identities. They felt the anti-war organizations were much too soft on the government and the police. They would destroy property, disrupt the flow of traffic and make violent threats to get press attention, hopefully to hasten the end of the Vietnam war.

“Yeah, I’ve heard of them,” I said.

“So I gotta leave for a couple days. Do you think he could stay with you for two nights?” It felt very ‘under-cover’ and important. I figured ‘what-the-heck! I didn’t have anything of much value in my apartment, in case he decided to steal something. Why not help someone who wants the war to end as much as I do. I said, “Sure!”

Later that evening I met him. He was about six foot four, lanky, short-cropped red hair, pale skin and a wry little smile. Seemed likeable enough. Said his name was Jan. He slept on our couch. Then next day when I got home from school, he was still there.

“So what is it you ‘Weathermen’ do, anyway?” I asked him. He was eating an apple he’d gotten out of our refrigerator without asking. He answered with his mouth full.

“Simple man, … we’re gonna kill the cops and set up a peaceful society.”

That was IT!  That was my lesson! It was crystal clear to me that ‘Peace’ cannot just be an ‘end’ in itself. In order for a peaceful world to exist, it can only come about through peaceful ‘means’, … otherwise, … it will always be ‘suspect’.  The ‘means ‘and ‘ends’ have to be the same!

Because, … when someone, anyone, … uses non-peaceful, violent forces to create their version of a ‘peaceful world’, … well, maybe a little bit later, they might just decide that it’s not quite ‘peaceful’ enough! Maybe some members of the ‘peaceful society’ aren’t doing something they’re supposed to be doing. Then that ‘someone’ with authority may feel that those ‘unpeaceful’ folks need to be put in prison for a while, or re-indoctrinated to the ‘peaceful ways’ of the dominant culture. And if that doesn’t work, maybe a little torture or death will persuade them.

It’s difficult to feel peaceful when we don’t feel safe. Making safe places, where we can express all our feelings and still be loved for being ourselves, is how we build a peaceful society. War does not make anyone feel safe, even the so-called “winners”. War is abusive to everyone.

We recognize how physical or emotional abuse can damage a child. We are chilled by the thought that someone would abuse a child. Yet when our country participates in violent acts against real humans in some other country, we seem able to cut off our compassionate feelings and turn away. It doesn’t prove that we’re stronger than someone else, by demonstrating that we’re more willing to use violence than they are. When we use violence, we are simply threatening and scaring them into doing something ‘our way’.

Humans from everywhere on our planet want and deserve peace. This is not hard to understand. Kids understand it.  And it’s actually simple enough for adults to understand too. We simply need to help each other.

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Illustration by Terri Asher