“Do you love yourself?”
That was the question posed to me by my three year old nephew, Leo, who was standing on a small chair in a small kitchen in a small town in the American south. It was early in the morning and he was still wearing pajamas and bedhead. There was no one else around and no one listening from a distance. It was just us. The question came after he declared his own love for me, for Wren, for Uncle Zachary, for mommy, for daddy, for brother Oscar and sister Fern; and then seemingly out of nowhere this question, “do you love yourself.” In the moment, I found myself taken aback and yet he was unfazed. He was expectant. I mustered up my best, “Of course I love myself!” and then quickly deflected, “and I love you too!” What is it that gives a white three year old the unabashed will to consider ones love for oneself? What is it that makes a white adult do an emotional double-take at the notion of self-love? Where in our upbringing does self-love get stamped out? I can remember several times throughout my childhood when someone told me not to love myself. I was told that Jesus wanted us to love each other, but was never told that Jesus cared if I loved myself. It wasn’t until well into adulthood that I heard Jesus telling us that children are the point of entry for our consideration of the cycle of oppression in our society and that the liberation of children is the very conception of…