If someone had told me that I would be sitting at the dinner table explaining the longstanding conflict between Palestine and Israel, the U.S occupation of Iraq, and why people do so many bad things to each other, I might have put a bit more thought into procreating. How do you best explain to your 7 year old, wars that have been going on since before you were born, conflicts that rage on for years, and why that 7 year old on the other side of the world has no legs? I love my kids. What makes them more important than that kid across the world who has no legs? Nothing except for the fact that they are more important to me. It seems like the world as a whole has devolved to the point where we think it's normal and okay to completely lack human empathy. Lacking empathy is what allows us to turn a blind eye to the suffering of others, to place our pain above that of others, to say, my life is more important because...it's mine.
Yea, I hate those discussions. I think our first nitty-gritty discussion that made me reevaluate parenthood was Thanksgiving. "Yes baby, it was a massacre, ummm, why do we celebrate it? Because we do so in the spirit of giving thanks for what we have been given, in the spirit of which those who died offered to share what they had with others. Not to celebrate the pain and suffering that occurred on the original day." Eeek. Well, I'm sure many people would be more than happy to disagree with my style of parenting. But I don't believe in lying to my children. Not telling them about the truth of this world is not going to make this world a better place, it won't make them become better men. It will only doom us to repeating the mistakes of humanity. After all, if we don't know, or cannot admit past faults, how can we learn from them?
Okay, that's my completely non-sexy and uninteresting philosophical rambling for the day lol.
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Play nice.