"Well, that's what Jesus said"

As told on "This American Life #188 Kid Logic"

"It all began on Christmas 2 years ago when my daughter was 4 years old. It was the first time that she had ever asked what did this holiday mean. I explained to her that this was celebrating the birth of Jesus. And she wanted to know more about that and we went out and bought a kids Bible. And had these readings at night. She loved them and wanted to know everything about Jesus. So we read alot about his birth and about his teaching. She would ask constantly what that phrase was. And I would explain to her that it was 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. And we would talk about those old words and what that all meant.

Then one day we were driving past a big church and out front was an enormous crucifix.

She said, 'Who is that?'.

I guess I never really told that part of the story.

So I had to kind of tell her 'Well that's Jesus, and I forgot to tell you the ending. He ran afoul of the Roman government. This message that he had was so radical and unnerving to the prevailing authorites at the time that they had to kill him. They came to the conclusion that he would have to die. That message was too troubling.'

It was about a month later after that Christmas. We had gone through the whole story of what Christmas meant. It was mid-January and her preschool celebrates the same holidays as the local schools. So Martin Luther King Day was off. So I knocked off work that day and I decided we'd play and I'd take her out to lunch. And we were siiting in there and right on the table where we happened to plop down was the Arts section of the local newspaper. There big as life was a huge drawing by a 10 year old kid from the local schools of Martin Luther King.

She said, 'Who's that?'

I said, 'Well as it happens that's Martin Luther King. And he's why you aren't in school today. Because we are celebrating his birthday. This is the day we celebrate his life.'

She said, 'So who is he?'

I said, 'He was a preacher'

She looks at me and says, 'For Jesus?'

And I said, "Yeah actually he was. But there was another thing that he was famous for. Which is that he had a message'.

You are trying to say this to a 4 year old. This is the first time they ever hear anything. So you are just very careful about how you phrase everything.

So I said, 'Yeah he was a preacher and he had a message.'

And she said, 'What was his message?'

I said, 'Well he said that you should treat everybody the same no matter what they look like.'

She thought about that for a minute. And she said, 'Well, that's what Jesus said'.

And I said, 'Yeah I guess it is. I never thought about it that way. That is sort of like "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you".'

She thought about for a minute and looked up to me and said, 'Did they kill him too?'