 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
by W. E. Gutman
|
|
|
|
|
by W. E. Gutman
Psychologists (and armchair pedagogues) have had a field day lately, exhorting parents to sugarcoat --- or altogether conceal --- the gravity of recent events.
Their motives might have merit if terrorism was a rare and isolated anomaly not worthy of sustained concern and scrutiny. The validity of such counsel in this new age of cosmic turmoil, however, is dubious and the long-term consequences of spoon-fed naivete can be devastating. Surely, young children should be spared undue exposure to disquieting happenstance. But this is not (nor has it ever been) the best of all possible worlds. Pretending that evil does not exist does not send Beelzebub scurrying.
In the current geopolitical context, I submit that it is this very head-in-the-sand attitude toward real and formidable dangers that left the US, with its multi-billion-dollar intelligence budget, shamefully unprepared for the September 11 catastrophe. Where does "innocence" end and negligent apathy begin?
A paternal aunt who survived Auschwitz refused to tell her American-born daughters about the horrors she had endured. "This is not the time; they could never understand," she said. The time never came and my cousins grew up in a counterfeit Shangri-La, two pampered, pompous prima donnas who would be rudely jarred from the smugness of their rosy torpor to awaken in a cannibalistic realm their mother had tried hard to deconstruct.
For my part, growing up in warn-torn Europe, I had learned the value of stealth and silence, and I had rehearsed denying being a Jew in half a dozen languages at an age --- I was four --- when most children take perverse delight in shrieking, gesticulating and being in everybody's face. I am none the worse for having confronted and survived immutable reality. Healthy pessimism forestalls undue expectations. It also helps anticipate --- with dignity and resolve, not histrionics --- what cannot be prevented.
Precocious and intuitive, my two sons, unlike my cousins, insisted on knowing. Atlas and history books in hand, I taught them why the slogan "Never Again" had been coined. What they distilled from this unexpurgated instruction are (a) the certitude that "it" can happen again, sometimes in the most unlikely place of all; and (b) the will to fight back.
They grew up to be cynics. Cynicism is a very small price to pay for the gift of perspicacity.
Children do not ask to be born. The least we can do is to prepare and harden them against a world not of their own choosing. Children are resilient and adaptable --- far more so than we give them credit for.
Telling children the truth --- suitably couched in language they can understand --- and assuring them of our unconditional love will not spawn a new brood of bogeymen. Bogeys have always existed. They just crawl out from under the bed now and then to show their ugly mugs.
Yesteryear's bucolic Rockwellian canvas of innocence and geniality has been replaced by real-time renditions of apocalypse. Preparing children for the inevitability of a troubled future is the most gut-wrenching of all parental duties. It may prove salutary in the long run. An ounce of prevention is still worth a pound of cure. A bargain in these troubled times.
Paris-born Willy Gutman, an Israeli citizen who is currently living in the United States, is a veteran journalist with extensive experience covering Latin America and is the author of several books.
|
All Rights Reserved For information or problems with this page contact: editor@ThePanamaNews.com |
|
|
|
 |