The White Crow Publishing House published a speech in the form of a book, which forty years ago had the effect of an exploding bomb. In it, Lindgren called for an end to physical abuse of children.
In 1978, Astrid Lindgren was to receive the Peace Prize of the German Booksellers. Solemn speeches, which the laureates planned to deliver from the stage, were sent to the organizers in advance. When the organizing committee read what Lindgren sent them, they asked to change the speech, rightly fearing the impression it would make on society. In those years, the practice of raising children physically was widespread even in the most advanced countries of Europe. And the call to parents to respect the child and refuse to beat, and the assumption that all the evil in the world from the fact that children are severely punished in childhood and they grow up into embittered adults looked very radical.
When asked by the committee to change her appeal, the writer, whose books already at that time sounded like a hymn of humanism towards children, replied that she was then refusing the award altogether. Because she believed that peace on Earth is possible only when children are brought up in love and respect. And the organizers reconciled.
I once met a pastor's wife who told me that when she was young and gave birth to her first child, she did not believe in beatings, although flogging children was very common then.
But once, when my son was 4 or 5 years old, he did such a prank that the pastor's wife decided, despite her principles, to pour rods on her son - for the first time in her life. She told her son to go into the yard and find a stick for himself. The boy was gone for a long time, and when he returned, his face was wet with tears. He said, "Mom, I didn't find a stick, but I found a rock that you can throw at me."
At that moment, the mother suddenly realized what the situation looked like from the child's point of view: if my mother wants to hurt me, then it doesn't matter how she does it, she can just as well make it with a stone. Mom put her son on her lap, and they cried together. She put a rock on the kitchen shelf as a reminder that violence is not the answer…”
As expected, the performance made a lot of noise. Thanks to him, disputes about corporal punishment and the rights of the child began. After 40 years, the issue of raising children has not yet been unequivocally resolved, and the White Crow publishing house hopes that the release of the book will remind you of the inadmissibility of any violence.
The Russian edition includes an afterword by psychologist Lyudmila Petranovskaya and Astrid Lindgren's poem "Be God".
