Innocence Must Be Lost

I'm sitting here, alone on a Saturday night (nothing unusual there), thinking about my daughter and how much I can learn from her. She's only four years old, so her view of the world is totally different from mine and most other adults'. She's blind to color and status. She has no concept of age or other discriminations. She doesn't know how to hate. She's never been teased by a classmate because of glasses or braces or because she's taller or shorter than everyone else. She doesn't know how it feels to be left out or picked last in dodgeball. She's never lost anyone that she can remember to death. She doesn't understand that death is final. She's never been let down by someone she trusted. She's never been ignored or tossed aside or stabbed in the back by someone she considered to be a friend. She's never been emotionally or physically abused or had her mind controlled. She's never been rejected by the one person she felt was on her side.

I'm sure most of these things will happen to her at some point and one day I won't be in a position to shield her. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to handle it when my 1st grader comes home crying because someone in her class was teasing her. How does a mother refrain from beating someone else's kid's ass????

My point is, why does my daughter have to learn these things? Why do people have to be hurtful? Why do we have to experience shame, hate, disappointment, and letdown?