(635) Sad children

Photographer: Alison Wright,
NatGeoJan09

I was flipping a National Geographic magazine, January 2009, when my attention was captured by Portrait of Survival taken by Alison Wright. This 4 year old Tibetan girl was returning from a horse festival. The photographer wrote that she had a face that seemed to express the underlying sadness of a culture that had been so challenged.

If this is the first child I saw that was sad, probably I would have just sighed and flipped on. There is another child that I see on a weekly basis that was perfectly normal until her brother was born. At age two, she looked sadder than this Tibetan girl. I know she has a loving father. Her mother works as a kindergarten teacher and happens to be artistic. The family of four lives with the father's parents.

I asked Elizabeth, she seemed to think that artistic folks are dreamers. If dreamers do not talk or smile for days on end, probably that is perfectly normal in her mind. Unfortunately I have spent a fair amount of time with music, fine arts, studio art majors years ago and I know not all of them are quiet nor sad looking. In fact some of these artsy people are very active and noisy most of the time.

Kenneth has a different opinion. He has known this family longer. He thinks the mother has always seemed to have a sad look in her eyes when she was not smiling. But he agreed that the sadness deepened after the first child was born.

I can't help but wonder how could sadness get passed on from one generation to another? Especially when the next generation is barely out of infancy! I am waiting to see if the younger brother of the sad looking girl in my hometown will acquire the same sad look in his eyes like his mum and sis when he turns two.