I'm just curious...... I feel like what we are taught as kids about Thanksgiving is kind of a farce. Yes, the pilgrims on that day shared w/ the native Americans. So this is where the holiday stems from. But in reality, these people then turned around and ran the Indians out of their land, alot were murdered etc. Kind of like Columbus Day. I had a friend post this statement "In honor of Columbus Day, I am walking in to your house uninvited, and telling you to get the F**k out, because I live here now" ......wow, how true!
So, JFF.... Do any of you feel like Thanksgiving is almost, well a joke? I'm all about getting together with my family and being Thankful for what we have. But the basis behind it is kind of sad, and twisted. I feel like when my kids are older, I will tell them some reality behind it. Don't want any one attacking me on this, it's JMO. But curious who else feels this way?
LOL Just to clarify, I don't think Thanksgiving is a bad day. I just think that we are taught to turn things in to what we want them to be, not what they are or SHOULD be. My great great grandmother was a native american. ANd her tribe still despised white people, and shunned her when she married my great great grandfather.
I was just curious if anyone felt like the day is a little hypocritical. I do think it's great to realize what we are thankful for, I'm not a scrooge!!
Well I wasn't there, anymore then I was at the Last Supper. However, I can't see how a yearly reminder to be thankful for all we have and share a meal with extended family and many friends could ever be a BAD thing!
:)
Well, my great grandfather was an Apache (dad's side) my great grandmother was Blackfoot (mom's side). We celebrate Thanksgiving as a time to be with family and that's it.
My great grandfather said he celebrated the spirit of the holiday and not the reason.
Frankly, I just look forward to having a few days off from work that I can spend with my family. I don't get caught up with the history of it...it has nothing to do with how and why I personally celebrate Thanksgiving....
Of course it's not a joke. We're all guilty of revisionist history to some degree. I have Native American blood in my veins and I treasure Thanksgiving as much as anyone because the origins of the holiday are not with the Pilgrims and Native Americans. That was just a fairytale told to children to help jump start the holiday when it was initiated as a national holiday.
Sometimes I think when well-meaning people decide to get indignant about certain holidays and holiday traditions, they should research when and how the holidays actually came about and why.
well my daughters and i just finished reading, sara, the girl who saved thanksgiving we loved it. we come to learn that thanksgiving was at jeopardy of being lost and not celebrated had it not been for this woman (true story), so what we learned is that even though it started with pilgrims, that wasn't the case why thanksgiving is really celebrated today. abraham lincoln agreed to make thanksgiving a national holiday when the country was at war with itself, to give people time to reflect on what is important. so that is the story we will choose form now on to reflect in our family. my kids don't know much about what happened with the indians and pilgrims but they are sooo excited now more so than ever about thanksgiving
btw, sarah hale is also the woman who wrote mary had a little lamb. what a woman huh? a hero really. i recommend this book to all for kids 4 and up. so good.
"The basis behind it is kind of sad, and twisted." I get where you're coming from, but how about focusing on how things have improved since then (and yes, there have been improvements) and embracing that instead? How about your own reasons for personal thanksgiving instead of focusing on the not-so-accurate history of the Pilgrim colony?
Also, here's another way to think of Thanksgiving if you can't get past the initial one: The Thanksgiving national holiday does not date from Pilgrim times but from 1863, when Lincoln proclaimed it a national day of thanksgiving in the midst of the Civil War, as way to foster unity and remind people that there were indeed still things to be thankful for, even in such difficult times. Can you embrace that historical precedent more than the Pilgrim story?
Historically speaking - no one people lasts forever.
Everyone, given enough time, will be conquered by someone else eventually.
I personally haven't invaded anyone, my ancestors immigrated here in the 1880's and I won't apologize for the founding of our country or the Civil War or slavery for that matter.
As for Thanksgiving - it's a harvest festival - and that's as old as agriculture and animal husbandry (growing crops and raising animals).
We trace it to the pilgrims as a convenience but it's much older than that.
Actually, the first recorded Thanksgiving was in the 1400's, 200 years before the Pilgrims/Indians one. It was by the Spanairds settling Florida. Thanksgiving has a rich history, it is even mentioned in the Bible.
Thanksgiving is NOT American, it is celebrated in Japan, the Middle East, Egypt... all over the world, and for centuries. It is celebrated as a harvest festival, as well as a commn practice amongst travelers who settled new areas, they would have a cleabration of Thanksgiving for their safe passage over the ocean. The actual Thanksgiving as we know it was not founded as a holiday until Abraham Lincoln declared it a holiday during the Civil War... to help bring hope and encouragement during a time of depression. He did that because the author of the Mary Had a Little Lamb song begged for it to be a recognized holiday. The only reason we celebrate the first Thanksgiving like we do, is because it was the MOST peaceful time during which the Pilgrims/Europeans and Native American co-existed, even to the point of celebrating together. The Pilgrims were dying and starving, the Indians taught them to survive. And this is amazing since Squanto, who first helped them, was a former slave... which is why he even spoke English to communicate with them.
So, whilst the Indians were later traumatized, Thanksgiving can still be celebrated as a time of thankfulness and of counting your blessings, how it is intended to be originally. Instead of perpetuating the myth that school children are taught today, they can learn the truth behind the holiday. In fact, Native Americans practice a Thanksgiving about 4 times a year, for each new season. On our actual national holiday of Thanksgiving, they call it a Day of Mourning, and lament their loss of customs, and stereotyping as fairytale creatures who wear feather headbands. Many school children question is Indians are still 'real'. Teach them a little about their culture and that they are very much still alive today.
Some great links:
http://www.gone-ta-pott.com/the_first_thanksgiving.html
Not based on the first reason for Thanksgiving, but it has CERTAINLY evolved into a wonderful holiday of food, family, love and giving thanks. That is what it means to me.
As far as for the original meaning, it still means something. We are celebrating, at the very least, the moment of which things were peaceful between us. We don't celebrate on account that later on (and before) there were still battles that didn't seem justified or morally right- but the moment. The part we are proud of, and would like to remember.
May I remind everyone that every nation has a past- some things they are proud of and some things they aren't. We can't keep punishing ourselves (or boasting or what-not) for what our very old ancestors did or didn't do. I think it all corrects itself when we know as individuals and as a nation that we are currently doing what we can and what we think is the right thing to do- we still falter and not everyone can be happy, but we ARE trying and things have certainly changed THANKS to our great nation.
This applies to SO MUCH more than Thanksgiving.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone:)
ADDED: Theresa N. SAID it!!!!!!
If anything, we should use thanksgiving as a lesson to be careful about who your trust! lol! The Native Americans gave the pilgrims food, showed them how to survive in this new land, and were slaughtered for their kindness. My kids know the truth of the first thanksgiving, but we also see it now as a time to get together with friends and family and give thanks for what we have, and to remember the sins of the past least they be repeated.
WOW, interesting responses! For those who think it was a fair fight. it wasn't. Did we slaughter the natives? Yes. Did we give them blankets infested with small pox. Yes. Did we force them to live on land that was not fertile? Yes. Have we treated them as second class citizens, even when they served in WWll ? yes. Are the native Americans still suffering YES! check out websites like FriendsofPINEridgereservation to see if you can help. Boycotting a day of thanks will not help make up for the unfairness. Feeling guilty doesn't help. But we can help. Personally, I am looking forward to celebrating a day of being thankful for all I have, and spending time with LOTS of family !
Definitely a case of the *fairy tale* version being more palatable, for sure.
I think it's best to stress the ideas of working together and being thankful.
My son is 8 and is well aware of the plight of Native Americans.
He finds it hilarious when people think that Columbus discovered America!
This isn't actually where Thanksgiving day came from. There were meals here and there thanking the Indians for their help and thanking God for saving them. BUT, it wasn't at the same time each year and it wasn't every year. It was much later when one of our presidents felt we needed a national day to thank GOD for all that GOD does for us. I don't remember for certain, but I think it was Lincoln.
As for the Indians, I don't think it's that simple. There were good relations with some tribes and bad relations with others. There were injustices for certain. But not all Indians were willing to help and there was plenty of room in the "New World". By the Indians own beliefs, man doesn't own the land. So I'm certain that there was a lot of savage killing that came from the Indians and that was unprovoked. It's not a simple matter and it's high time we stop dwelling on the past that none of us can change.
Good points. I do feel that way to an extent. As far as my kids go, I think I focus on the message of celebrating the potential of different peoples merging and helping each other - knowing all was not well back then. And of course, we celelbrate a day to focus on Thanks in general.
We recently vistited Jamestown (think Pocohantas) which actually predates the Pilgrims. It's a great place to visit with kids. Fantastic. I learned a lot about the existance of the colonists and the native Americans side by side. Yes, it was tenuous, but they did exist and help each other some of the time. What ultimately happened to the natives is terrible, and the feat and violence on both sides was terrible, but there is something about focusing on the coexistance that still is worth reflecting on.
Similarly, my daugher's preschool focuses on a feast where we all contribute from our cultures - Latin, Indian, Italian, Chinese - and it is nice to celebrate this merging of cultures successfully in present time. Of course, we still have tensions today among different cultures, but it is the appreciation for those differences that I think is a valuable view of Thanksgiving.
Everything in American history is a bit twisted.
And it still is.
I don't stress on the history of Thanksgiving, but I am waivering on the needless slaughter of turkeys to celebrate it, so I'm not doing turkey this year.
I'm not sure that native americans are pissed off, I think they have let it go for the most part.
Progress was going to happen one way or another.
Progress is just like labor pains, it always hurts.
I realize the facts of the invasion that occurred back then but I would like to also remember why they ventured out of their homes and how much it took for them to come across the sea when truly they were still trying to believe the world wasn't flat...lol. It was a dark time as far as really knowing the world as we do now.
I like to think once they got a harvest in and knew what was coming as far as Winter was concerned they were truly thankful they had been able to escape tyranny and had found the place they could practice the religions and everything they left home to overcome.
The things that came over the next 100+ years is sad for sure. There were wars, civil wars, Indian wars, etc...so much blood shed. But the idea of thanksgiving was and is to remember what we have and ponder on the ideals of where we could be or how bad off we could be and to be grateful we have what we have.
As for me, I am grateful to have running hot and cold water, central heat and air, to have a grocery store that I can go to and buy meat, already cut up and ready to cook. I am grateful to have doctors and medications that help us to have a fuller and healthier quality and quantity of life. I am grateful I have my FIL still alive and that he is a great help to us. I am truly thankful I believe in God and all that goes with that. I am grateful for our military both now and before that went and planned to give the ultimate sacrifice if needed to protect that right for me and my family. I am thankful I am not a pilgrim faces with the choices they had to make in dark times.
this post really irks me, i don't take any of it as a JFF.......facts are very important.........there are lots of sucky things in this world, whether they are from 200 hundred years ago or today, but who can really complain about a holiday about "Thanks".....i am not attacking you, it's JMO
I want to recommend that you go to the original source documents and read what really happened. There is a lot of revisionist history being taught today in the name of political correctness. Go read Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford. He was actually the governor of Plymouth Plantation and at the first Thanksgiving. Read what he said about it. So many Americans are believing the garbage that the public schools are putting out today. Go back and read the original documents. Get the true story.
Yeah, I was going to say simmilar to Lola about Sara and Lincoln and all that good stuff ... it's just a fun thing to do with the kids ... kind of like how we trick or treat on Halloween. Have you questioned that classic American Holiday too?? Yes, there is a tinge of sarcasm, can not help it I am sick and that's what happens - but really what schools teach kids these days is crazy odd ... Lincoln does not have a whole chapter anymore but a few pages if he is lucky - he is a freaking American Hero!
My girls are 4 and 5 and of course are being taught the whitewashed history right now about the pilgrims and Native Americans. I will of course make sure they know the true history when it's appropriate, in a couple of years. I will not allow them to have a whitewashed version for too long but for now, I am ok with it.
I understand the spirit of your post, and that you are not serious about not celebrating Thanksgiving - your point is to make people think about it. And it is a valid point.
Personally, the main message I go over with my kids is to be thankful for everything we have. Not every family has a home, and has enough to eat and has wonderful parents who take good care of their children. And not every family gets to live in a free country where we can voice our thoughts - like we do here on mamapedia - without running the risk of getting imprisoned, or worse. We are SO LUCKY to live in America. Yes, we have some rather large blemishes in our history and I am very ashamed of this. Slavery, no rights for women, Native American slaughter, and more. But overall, America is so much better than any other country in the world, I am proud and happy to be American.
Thanksgiving for ME means spending time with my family, and eating a bunch of food I don't like. (It's really about the family.) It's nothing new, you know...what happened. People are still kicking people out and killing. Whether it's about religion, race, wealth, power...theirs still kicking and killing. I like for Thanksgiving to be about family, and I save history for another day.
I treat some of this like the sex questtion
At 2 you just say the baby is in Mommy.
At 6 you give a little more information, the glorified story
At 10 they learn the truth
THen at 16 when they go out you can say at the dinner table "Don't go out having sex with Ashley, I dont want grandbabies yet." Always good to mortify them before they leave.
So now my kids know the truth about Columbus. My 10 year old does not know the whole Pilgrim story yet.
I do the same thing with the Holocaust, the Crusades, Pearl Harbor, and day to day subjects, drugs, alcohol, sex.
I do not do it with 9/11 THey all know that is the reason Daddy deployed and they all watched the tv that day and have lived the war for 10 years now.
I completely get this... when my daughter came home excited because they learned about how great Columbus was and that he discovered America... I set my 6 y/o straight. Thanksgiving to me is simply spending family time together - because just thinking of the prudish, puritan Pilgrims make me angry - as did majority of any European settlers to North America.
The white/hispanic men raped, killed, stole, slaughtered women, children and animals that were staples to the clans, they bombarded them on PURPOSE with diseases to lower their numbers... I could go on and on. The Natives had roadways connecting villages and had a connection/network of sorts between each other. They had a medicine knowledge and application which is still used today by many homeopathic Drs. They had traditions, myths/legends and civilized lifestyles. It is disgusting what happened to them.
Did you know the reason the Natives invited the Pilgrams for a joining over dinner? Because they caught the white men RAIDING the graves of the Native's dead... stealing the clothing, foodstuff, etc - not simply because they felt the white man was special. They gave more than a hand out to them and not only was it bitten off, but so was 90% of their bodies!
Every event in history has conflicts like this where a stronger group defeated a weaker group. It is part of life but it is also an opportunity to talk about conflicts that do exist all over the world. Unfortunately we will never see complete "peace" in this world but we can raise our children with good principles and do the best we can where we are in this moment of time. We can only control what's in our little world and make sure our children grow up helping the world not hurting this world. (people and the planet we are on). And personally that is hardest job anyone can have.
