What to tell the children about illegal wars and torture of 'suspects'?

[Q]

- For me...this is going to be much more difficult to explain than an 'affair' and BJs in the White House.

- How do we explain to young minds that the president* of the United States condoned and encouraged the torture of (perhaps innocent) human beings in order to extract information that would make HIM look better?

- How do we tell them about the rape and torture of children their age while their mothers were forced to watch?

- How can we explain the depravity? The sheer ugliness and inhumanity? How do we explain that we're not the 'good guys' anymore?

[gpandas]

1. the truth and nothing but the truth...

kids can handle the truth.

[StopThief]

2. Are they asking questions. . . . .

or do you think they are growing up too slowly?

[ShaneGR]

3. To a child....

You say sometimes people aren't what they seem. Bad people sometimes pretend to be the good. It's up to the average person to tell the difference. Then tell them Bush is the devil and we're working hard to replace him in the upcoming election.

[Cocoa]

4. where's the outrage?

and where's Bill Bennett?

[Jacobin]

5. Bill Bennett?

I think he's feeding money into the Lucky 7's machine in Atlantic City.

[in_cog_ni_to]

6. I've already explained all that to my son

(he's 11} by telling him the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He gets it. He knows how evil this administration is. He knows how the chimp lied about WMD. He has seen the 833 pictures of the dead American soldiers. He has seen the torture pictures from Abu Ghraib. He has seen pictures of injured and dead Iraqi citizens. He KNOWS that war is BAD. He knows what the repubs have done to our country. He knows all that because I don't shield him from it. I want him to know that war is not the way to settle anything. I want him to know that people DIE in wars. I want him to know what compassion for others is. I want him to care about the people of the world, not just himself and his world.

Just tell them the truth.

[gpandas]

8. not enough parents like you n/t

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TrogL]

9. I warned mine ahead of time it wasn't going to be pretty

and that with Dubya in office they were going to be seeing some alarming stuff on TV.

Now when something comes by on the TV and they see me starting to say something they just glare and say "don't start".

[Solly Mack]

10. There is no easy way to tell a young child about the evils of life

I don't feel it necessary to discuss a President's consensual sex life with a child. It's none of a child's business-just as it is none of mine. Still, if they have questions, I will answer them.

However, a child , being a child, can catch the faintest whiff of hypocrisy quicker than Bush can lie. So children know. They may not express it...but they know. And what they know is this:

"Support the troops" does not gee-haw with troops hurting people. So they will wonder, and some do ask.

"America - the great liberator" does not gee-haw with torture. So they wonder...

The list of contradictions is long...and children pick up on them. It's what they do - see the world through the eyes of someone who has yet learned to lie to themselves or to others about the most basic of truths. They see the hypocrisy.

We can pretend they don't..and lose the chance to show them that not everyone just accepts the contradictions...or we can take that moment to let them know that it's not right, it is wrong, and we are working to do away with the contradictions.


This isn't to suggest a child can't lie, they can...but that doesn't mean they don't see the hypocrisy around them...cause you can bet your sweet bippy they do. They also know when the adults around them accept that hypocrisy as a part of life.


Unless you're a rightwing parent who teaches America - always good and always right, everyone else - always bad and always wrong. Then the contradictions are neatly explained away as "they hate America"...it might take them several years to quash their childs keen sense of fairness and hypocrisy radar, but it eventually happens.