Be Kind.
So hard to do now-a-days, isn't it?
My 7 year old (Impling #2 for those old timers who might wander this way at some point...yes I have been busy) and I are lucky enough to have a space of time in the morning to just be together, smooth out her hair, read together, and talk. No phones, no video games, just face to face time where she can talk about whatever she likes to me.
This morning she opened with:
"I want to tell you I heard something kind of dark on the radio."
"Go ahead, sweetie. Tell me what you heard."
"But it's really dark."
"You can tell me. I want to hear."
"I heard that six people were killed!"
...
...
...
"You're right sweetie, that is really dark."
The pause was my mind trying to get ready for...what? The airwaves are overrun with darkness. One of my first thoughts was "yes, that is dark, but..."
Automatically I tried to make this soundbite of information less hurtful, less important, because in comparison with other atrocities, it...what? Wasn't really so bad?
Who said "Comparisons are odious?"*
I looked up a translation for myself, having the vague thought that "odious" meant "useless" but uncertain of the accuracy of my memory, so here it is courtesy of dictionary.Cambridge.org odious: adj. extremely unpleasant; causing and deserving hate.
So...comparing two different things or persons can lead to unpleasantness and hatred.
I think we can make a case for that.
So instead we acknowledged that, yes, people being killed is dark, and awful, and sad. We talked about how it seems like there are only scary stories on the radio. (No, we still don't watch tv ya'll.)
Then the word "perspective" came up, and the question "Why do people kill?"
I grasped for something that my 7 year old could understand. "People can make bad choices when they are scared and angry and stressed."
After paraphrasing that lyric from the Troll song in "Frozen", Imp 2 told me about a boy on her playground who said that "anyone who voted for Trump is crazy", and she felt bad because she thought it was a mean thing to say.
And as much as that boy had my sympathy, my daughter is right. It is a mean thing to say.
So in the spirit of my upright, socially sophisticated daughter, I will do my best to not be mean.
At least on my blog.
But with my girls in the early morning before school, its no hold barred, my friends. We'll let it rip.
*According to phrases.org.uk, "the earliest recorded use of this phrase appears to be by John Lydgate in his "Debate between the horse, goose and sheep, circa 1440:
"Odyous of olde
been comparisonis
And of comparisonis
engendyrd is
haterede."
It was later used by several authors later, notably Cervantes, Christopher Marlowe and John Donne.
And, of course, misquoted by Shakespeare's character Dogwood, who made the observation that "Comparisons are odorous". Can also make a case for that.
My 7 year old (Impling #2 for those old timers who might wander this way at some point...yes I have been busy) and I are lucky enough to have a space of time in the morning to just be together, smooth out her hair, read together, and talk. No phones, no video games, just face to face time where she can talk about whatever she likes to me.
This morning she opened with:
"I want to tell you I heard something kind of dark on the radio."
"Go ahead, sweetie. Tell me what you heard."
"But it's really dark."
"You can tell me. I want to hear."
"I heard that six people were killed!"
...
...
...
"You're right sweetie, that is really dark."
The pause was my mind trying to get ready for...what? The airwaves are overrun with darkness. One of my first thoughts was "yes, that is dark, but..."
Automatically I tried to make this soundbite of information less hurtful, less important, because in comparison with other atrocities, it...what? Wasn't really so bad?
Who said "Comparisons are odious?"*
I looked up a translation for myself, having the vague thought that "odious" meant "useless" but uncertain of the accuracy of my memory, so here it is courtesy of dictionary.Cambridge.org odious: adj. extremely unpleasant; causing and deserving hate.
So...comparing two different things or persons can lead to unpleasantness and hatred.
I think we can make a case for that.
So instead we acknowledged that, yes, people being killed is dark, and awful, and sad. We talked about how it seems like there are only scary stories on the radio. (No, we still don't watch tv ya'll.)
Then the word "perspective" came up, and the question "Why do people kill?"
I grasped for something that my 7 year old could understand. "People can make bad choices when they are scared and angry and stressed."
After paraphrasing that lyric from the Troll song in "Frozen", Imp 2 told me about a boy on her playground who said that "anyone who voted for Trump is crazy", and she felt bad because she thought it was a mean thing to say.
And as much as that boy had my sympathy, my daughter is right. It is a mean thing to say.
So in the spirit of my upright, socially sophisticated daughter, I will do my best to not be mean.
At least on my blog.
But with my girls in the early morning before school, its no hold barred, my friends. We'll let it rip.
*According to phrases.org.uk, "the earliest recorded use of this phrase appears to be by John Lydgate in his "Debate between the horse, goose and sheep, circa 1440:
"Odyous of olde
been comparisonis
And of comparisonis
engendyrd is
haterede."
It was later used by several authors later, notably Cervantes, Christopher Marlowe and John Donne.
And, of course, misquoted by Shakespeare's character Dogwood, who made the observation that "Comparisons are odorous". Can also make a case for that.
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