Sugar in the Milk

I never wanted to be a teacher. But, like many people clawing their way through the post-graduate job market, I took what I could get. Substitute teaching wasn’t something I was excited about–it was nothing more than a side hustle that could help me save a few extra dollars. I didn’t see myself in school as an educator, and I certainly didn’t see myself as a one-on-one paraeducator responsible for supporting a neurodivergent child through his school day. But sometimes taking new jobs requires you to step out of your comfort zone.

I expected to sit in on a few social studies classes, maybe help my student with a math problem or two. What I didn’t expect was to find myself sitting beside an eleven-year-old boy who quietly restored a faith I progressively felt slipping through my fingers.

In the aftermath of the past few years—pandemic, political hostility, constant headlines built on fear—it felt impossible to really see the world for anything other than cold. I’d grown used to cynicism, to assuming that cruelty was inevitable and empathy was conditional. But children, I’m learning, haven’t been trained out of their instincts yet. They still react from the gut, from a place that hasn’t been dulled by ideology or convenience.

The boy and I sat side by side to read a story together called Sugar in the Milk. It tells the story of a group of people from Persia who had fled hardship and arrived on the shores of India seeking refuge. They plead with the local King to let them stay. The King, whose land was already prosperous and full in his eyes, responds by sending them a silver bowl filled to the brim with milk—his way of saying there is no room for anyone else.

Before I could even finish the page, my student scowled.

“That’s pretty messed up,” he said. “Why won’t he let them in? They’re people. And it’s pretty cool to speak a different language.”

There was no hesitation in his response. No calculation. No qualifying statements about resources or borders or who “deserves” help. Just an immediate moral clarity: these are people, and people should be helped. 

I sat there, stunned—not by the story, but by him. 

His reaction made it impossible not to think about the images we see in the news: ICE raids that tear families apart, children coming home from school to empty houses, parents treated as problems to be removed rather than people to be protected. These are moments that adults justify with the same symbolic bowl of milk—there’s no room, the system is full, we can’t take any more. 

But children don’t see systems. They see faces.

People in this country spend hours arguing themselves into indifference. We invent language to distance ourselves from suffering. We reduce human beings to policies, statistics, or threats. We say things like it’s complicated when what we often mean is it’s inconvenient. Somewhere along the way, empathy becomes something we ration. And somewhere along the way, we are constantly trying to be convinced that even rationed empathy is radical. Yet, here was a child who hadn’t learned how to do that yet.

As we kept reading, we found out the response of the Persian leader: he added sugar to the bowl of milk presented before him. The milk level didn't change, but it became sweeter. The King changes his mind realizing that the refugees would integrate and enhance the society, not ruin it. The child almost jumped out of his seat with excitement. With a beaming expression, he exclaimed, “He let them stay!”

I watched the child continue on his day, pulling up chairs for students who needed a seat and giving a bag of chips to a friend that was hungry at lunch. When I told him it was so nice of him to share a snack that he brought from home, he responded, “Well, if someone needs it, why wouldn’t I give it to them. Plus I don’t even like nacho cheese Doritos.” He was in school to attain knowledge, to learn from the adults what it means to be a helpful part of society and to be a good person. But he was doing all these things that so many of his elders in society were reluctant to do: to help others, to understand the importance of feeding the hungry, to see people for people. 

Unfortunately, the innocence that he still has is something that will never be restored in me. And the guilt I feel isn’t because I’ve lost it—but because I know he will, too. I know there will come a day when the world teaches him that not everyone sees people as people, that kindness is often met with suspicion, and that compassion is something many believe must be earned. I feel guilty knowing that his clarity will eventually be complicated by explanations adults use to justify turning away.

But for now, he still believes what feels obvious to him: that if someone is hungry, you feed them; if someone needs help, you give it; if someone asks to stay, you make room. Sitting beside him, I’m reminded that this way of seeing the world isn’t unrealistic—it’s elemental. If an eleven-year-old can recognize the basic obligations we owe one another without hesitation or debate, I can’t help but wonder why so many adults spend their lives arguing themselves out of the same conclusion.