mocachapeau
Dagobah Resident
I just had to share this.
Last night I sat down to read to my 10 year-old daughter at bedtime for the first time in a while. The series of books that I am reading to her is called The Fortune Tellers Club by Dotti Enderle. It's about three young girls who use various forms of divination to solve little mysteries. It's a lot of fun.
In this episode, one of the girls has to do a book report on one of her favorite books, and then donate the book to the new school library. The book she chooses is one that comes with a little pendulum and gets the reader to try and use it to solve a mystery. This sets off quite a ruckus when the mother of one of the children in the class complains to the principle about witchcraft in the school, and tries to prevent the book from being allowed into the library. So now we have the two mothers in a bit of a showdown with one crying censorship and citing the first amendment, and the other starting ridiculous rumours of having been threatened with having a curse put on her by the first mother.
I found the timing of this really uncanny, having recently read Laura's Halloween article about witch hunts, and the rest. As much as my daughter was enjoying the story, she was even more captivated with the things I was able to share with her about the Dark Ages, and appropriately appalled by it all. Particularly the part about the woman not dying from the burning or drowning being proof that she was a witch. "So they were just killing people for nothing!” she said, without me having to spell it out for her.
A little further into the chapter, the little girl says she feels like she has set off World War Three. "Has there been a WWIII?" my daughter asked. This led to a discussion about WWII, and comparisons of the witch hunts to the treatment of the Jews by the Nazis. This then led us to the subject of wars being waged today and the fear-mongering directed at Muslims. And last, but not least, 9/11.
It was at this moment that I realized that she didn't know much about 9/11 and had never seen what had happened to the twin towers. I didn't know how that could be possible with all I'd said about it over the years, but I brought her to the computer to look at that frightful event.
So what did she have to say? Loosely translated:
"It's really bizarre. They're just falling straight down. They aren't breaking apart in pieces or falling over to the side, they're just going straight down."
A ten-year-old child's first observation.
Now, how many millions of adults have never even questioned anything about that day? As incomprehensible as that has always been for me, I have never been more disgusted by it than I was last night.
Last night I sat down to read to my 10 year-old daughter at bedtime for the first time in a while. The series of books that I am reading to her is called The Fortune Tellers Club by Dotti Enderle. It's about three young girls who use various forms of divination to solve little mysteries. It's a lot of fun.
In this episode, one of the girls has to do a book report on one of her favorite books, and then donate the book to the new school library. The book she chooses is one that comes with a little pendulum and gets the reader to try and use it to solve a mystery. This sets off quite a ruckus when the mother of one of the children in the class complains to the principle about witchcraft in the school, and tries to prevent the book from being allowed into the library. So now we have the two mothers in a bit of a showdown with one crying censorship and citing the first amendment, and the other starting ridiculous rumours of having been threatened with having a curse put on her by the first mother.
I found the timing of this really uncanny, having recently read Laura's Halloween article about witch hunts, and the rest. As much as my daughter was enjoying the story, she was even more captivated with the things I was able to share with her about the Dark Ages, and appropriately appalled by it all. Particularly the part about the woman not dying from the burning or drowning being proof that she was a witch. "So they were just killing people for nothing!” she said, without me having to spell it out for her.
A little further into the chapter, the little girl says she feels like she has set off World War Three. "Has there been a WWIII?" my daughter asked. This led to a discussion about WWII, and comparisons of the witch hunts to the treatment of the Jews by the Nazis. This then led us to the subject of wars being waged today and the fear-mongering directed at Muslims. And last, but not least, 9/11.
It was at this moment that I realized that she didn't know much about 9/11 and had never seen what had happened to the twin towers. I didn't know how that could be possible with all I'd said about it over the years, but I brought her to the computer to look at that frightful event.
So what did she have to say? Loosely translated:
"It's really bizarre. They're just falling straight down. They aren't breaking apart in pieces or falling over to the side, they're just going straight down."
A ten-year-old child's first observation.
Now, how many millions of adults have never even questioned anything about that day? As incomprehensible as that has always been for me, I have never been more disgusted by it than I was last night.
