Well, first of all, we’d all be eating horribly. My daughter and a friend made the following snack this evening, after hiding out in my girlfriend’s pantry for about ten minutes:
Bread (whole wheat), spread liberally with peanut butter. Not bad so far, but it gets better (or worse, depending on your perspective). Topped with chocolate chips, peanuts and Welch’s fruit gummies.
YUCK.
But that’s not the point of this post. This is:
You know how sometimes, your children ask you something and then you take ages to try to contextualize the answer for them so they can understand it, and you think — rather indulgently — oh, how simple a child’s world is? For example, this evening my seven year-old asked “what are drugs?” in response to a background discussion about Lindsay Lohan. How do you explain the concept of illegal drug use to a child who has no concept of mood-altering anything? To whom a drug is simply the yucky-tasting antibiotic her mom makes her take even after she’s feeling better? It took me a good five minutes of round-about allegory and I still don’t think she really understood me. It’s at moments like these that we smile, shake our heads and wistfully imagine living in a simple world where all words have one definition and complicated shades of gray simply don’t exist.
Speaking of black and white, don’t you love this image? I find it so evocative…the way the children are embracing and supporting each other…the contrast between black and white and the way the children seem to be dreaming…it makes you wonder: is peace simply a childish dream? I for one hope not.
And then there are the times when you just think, “shit. If only we all looked at it from a child’s point of view”. I had one of those moments this evening as well, when my children overheard the word genocide on the news. They asked me to define it, and I told them that it was the attempt by a group of people to kill an entire other group of people. “Like, say, killing all black people, or all white people, or all Jewish people…” I said. And my daughter, my beautiful, wise ten year-old said, “that is just soooo wrong. One of the best things about this world is having different cultures.” To which her wonderful seven year-old sister added, “yeah, and war is just stupid; I mean, it’s just people shooting other people and then they’re just dead. I mean, it doesn’t make sense and people should just stop doing it.”
For a moment, I thought of telling them about the age-old territorial or religious or political feuds that drive much of the world’s armed conflict, and I considered teaching them that it is in fact true that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But then I was moved to see the power in their innocence. When you get right down to it, most war is just stupid and really doesn’t make sense and yes: people should just stop doing it.
Way to go, girls. You just taught this old lady a lesson.
They have the right attitude, entirely! Oh my goodness…. if only everyone everywhere could hold onto such a simple, innocent thought. Le sigh.
Love that image but it seems to have a real sadness to me.
I love the girls’ perspective on things and I agree totally. I think the problem is the rest of the world!
Thanks girls. You’ve made this disillusioned old lady smile this morning!