Kid On a Leash

Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, Zitkala-Sa (Red Bird)

". . . two warm hands grasped me firmly, and in the same moment I was tossed high in midair. I was both frightened and insulted by such trifling. I stared into her eyes, wishing her to let me stand on my own feet, but she jumped me up and down with increasing enthusiasm. My mother had never made a plaything of her wee daughter. Remembering this I began to cry aloud." (Zitkala Sa, The School Days of an Indian Girl, p. 1020)

Red Bird is recalling the memory of her arrival at White's Manual Labor Institute and her first interaction with one of the teachers at the school. The white woman, while well meaning, has embarrassed Sa and made her feel like a "plaything". This passage is one of the more benign cultural misunderstandings Zitkala experiences while attending the Quaker run school.

This passage in interesting because it brings up two thoughts for me about culture and power. Especially Sa's mother and her powerlessness. I think that for the most part, it's true that she didn't have much power and that that was frustrating for her, however, I don't believe that she was completely powerless. This quote speaks to one source of power her mother held, and it was the power she held over her child. Here, Sa remembers that her mother treated her with dignity and respect, as opposed to the white men and women she encountered at the school.

In our culture, young children are treated almost as pets by adults in general. The idea is that they are young and cute, with no thought put into how it might make the children feel. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are many people who strive to treat children with dignity, but I don't see that as being the rule rather than the exception. I hadn't thought of the behavior that the teacher displays as being particularly "wrong" and I still don't in the sense that I understand that she meant only to express affection. Still, I wonder if fussing over children in such a manner, especially when we aren't familiar with them is simply condescending.
One answer to why Red Bird's mother didin't directly intervene in her going to school - she repected her daughter's free will. Sure, as her mother, she is entitled to govern what Red Bird does, but she also recognized that there is a limit to that entitlement, that Red Bird is a person who has her own mind and at that point could make her own decisions.
There is also something to be said about it possibly being a racial thing as well. Sa and the other Native American children (and Native Americans in general) weren't thought of as individuals deserving of respect, and would therefore be more likely to be treated as a curiosity - a pet as well. Still, you can't deny the socialization that dictates our place in the world in our culture.