My daughter asked me the other day why the colonies rebelled against England, and why England reacted so severely. She didn't think it was fair that the British soldiers could knock on any door, day or night, and demand to be housed, fed, and have their wash kept without offering anything in return. She didn't understand why anyone would allow that to happen.
"Think of it this way," I told her. "England is like a parent, and the colonies are like the kids. The colonies are very far away from England, so they really can't keep a very good eye on what's going on. Imagine living with no parents around to tell you what to do and you could do anything you wanted. What do you think you would do then?"
"Well," she responded thoughtfully, "I would go look for a parent to be in charge. Kids can't rule everything, you know! That wouldn't be a good idea."
I put on a thoughtful face for a moment, "Let's just pretend that there are no parents around anywhere, and try as you might, you just can't find one. What would you do then?"
"So, I could do anything I want?" she asked with that questioning look, almost as though she thought it were some kind of test.
I nodded, "Anything at all. After all, there's no parents around, so you couldn't even get into any trouble."
"Yay!" she shouted. "Then I would eat all the yummy food I wanted whenever I wanted. I would go to bed whenever I felt like it. I would play all day, and maybe watch some TV! I would play with lots of other kids! I would be crazy!" She got up and ran around the room about ten times while shouting this out.
I couldn't help but laugh at this. She was being pretty silly. Still, I had to turn it back to the lesson and away from the craziness. "That's pretty much what the colonies did. They didn't have a parent looking over them to tell them how to act or what to do, so they kind of did their own thing. Much like kids, each of the colonies got their own personality and did things their own way. Much like kids, some still lived the way their parents wanted them to, even though the parent wasn't there to make them do it, and other colonies, like New England, really got their own idea of how things should be run and sought to find a better way."
She seemed to think about this, and then she asked, "But what does that have to do with dumping tea off the boats into the water?"
"Well," I said, pausing for dramatic effect, and because I know it keeps her interest, "when England realized that the colonies were doing their own thing, they realized they had to do things to make sure the colonies still knew who was the boss. They also wanted to make more money off the colonies, so that the colonies couldn't get too rich and contend with British power. As a result, they started taxing the colonists. They were taxed on sugar. There was the Stamp Act..."
Before I could finish my speech, she broke in with, "They were even taxing their tea! They wanted to make everyone pay the king for everything, didn't they?"
I nodded, "Pretty much. Taxes on a population is one way to make sure the people know who is in charge, who makes the rules, and who they have to answer to."
"But that's not fair!" she broke in again.
"I know," I responded, "But that's why they wanted to have their own representation in Parliament. If they had someone to speak for them in Parliament, then they would have a chance to speak for their own rights, to help make the laws that governed them. It's like when you and I sit down to solve problems together, or what chores you have to do, so you have some say in the rules you have to follow."
She nodded, "That would be fair."
"But," I said, "Parliament listen, so the colonists felt they had to do something about their unfair treatment. So, pretending there's no parents around still, what would you do if some parent from far away started insisting that you give up some of everything you got, just because that parent was making sure you were safe and no one could hurt you from very far away. Instead of caring for you themselves, they just sent some teacher or babysitter to watch over you and all the kids in the whole town...and to collect their tax?"
"I wouldn't give the parent anything!" she cried. "That's just not fair! The parent isn't really doing anything for me. I'd rather just give it all to the person in charge. That would be more fair."
"The colonists didn't think it was very fair either," I said. So instead of complaining about it, they decided to do something about it, something that would cost their parent country a lot of money, possibly even more money than they had managed to tax from that colony with all of their other crazy taxes."
She smiled, "They had to do something about it! They had to make that bad parent England listen to them because they weren't being fair!"
"Exactly!" I exclaimed, "But England didn't like it very much, so they decided the colonies couldn't be trusted. They needed to show that they were there, watching everything the colonists did. That's why they sent all the soldiers, so they could keep an eye on the people and keep them in control. How would you feel if a parent came in and found out that you weren't doing what you were supposed to while they were away, so they were now going to watch you, or have you watched, every moment of the day. You couldn't even sleep without being watched! If you didn't follow every rule exactly, you would be punished by being put in time-out for hours on end! You would have a very strict bed time and wouldn't have time for as much fun as you would like."
"I would just totally ignore that parent," she said, acting it out by crossing her arms, turning away from me, and sticking her nose straight up in the air. "It wouldn't be right. That parent is mean and I don't have to listen to a parent like that!"
I smiled, "That's rebellion! That right there, not doing what your told for whatever reason, but especially when you know it's wrong! That's why the colonies rebelled! That's why they threw the tea in the harbor!"
We went on there to talk about different ways that the "bad parent" could have handled it so that the colonies would have been more understanding. It was a lot of fun to discuss things from history in a way that's so easy for my daughter to relate to her own life. She thought it was a lot of fun, and learned a lesson on how things relate, even if they don't at all seem the same!
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