Rethinking the Meaning of Heroism, With an 8-Year-Old’s Help

The World According to Claire

Recently I was zooming with Sue, a dear friend I’ve known since middle school. Sue had battled breast cancer years ago, and won. Because of this people often label her “heroic.”

“I don’t like it when people call me heroic.” she said, “What does that mean? If I’m heroic for surviving, does this mean women who fought just as hard as I did, but didn’t make it, aren’t heroic? I mean, the antonym of heroic is cowardly.” As we were pondering this point, Sue’s 8 year old daughter Claire walked into the room, brushing the hair of a Barbie once owned by her grandmother, and dropped this little nugget,

“Heroism is when you take a risk for another person even though it may hurt yourself.”

Ummm. Ok. That was a better definition than anything we came up with. I asked Claire if you could be heroic if you stood up for yourself. Without missing a beat Claire said, “I don’t know. I think that’s another word, but maybe you could call that self-heroism.”

I began asking rapid fire questions. What else could this eight year old girl come up with?

“Claire, can you use the word ‘grit’ in a sentence!”