How much NPR/CNN/other news do you parent-readers let your kids access? I ask because we're having an issue in our house with what I think might be TMI for Connery.
We listen to NPR a lot. It's the first thing we turn on after the coffee maker in the morning and one of the last things we turn off before we go to bed. One of the reasons we love NPR is its in-depth news coverage and reporting about all kinds of interesting subjects. However, I think that Connery is really internalizing some of these stories, and I'm not sure it's necessarily healthy for a 3-year-old. He asked me the other day, out of the blue, if there is a war where soldiers are being killed. When I said that there was, he asked more questions. Where is the war? Why are people being hurt? Who's being hurt? I tried to explain things as simply and honestly as I could without detouring into propaganda or really scary shit. He mulled all of this over and then said, "I'd like to go stop the war with my sword."
We talked more about how swords might not be the best way to stop a war, and his next question to me was, "How *do* you stop a war?"
Wow. Good question, my son.
I tried to explain--again as simply as possible--that wars are often started by governments and governments have to stop them. He wanted to know who could stop a war. I told him that presidents can stop wars.
"Could President Bush stop the war?" he asked. When I told him he probably could, he said he wanted to write a letter to President Bush asking him to stop the war. This is what he asked me to write for him:
Dear President Bush:
Can you stop the war? War scares me. You have to stop it. In war, people have swords that can hurt people. It's not good to hurt people.
Thank you for reading my letter.
Then he asked me if Jon Tester could stop the war.
Some of you probably think I'm making this up or using my son as a rhetorical device, but I can assure you that's not the case. We're also making every attempt not to use him as a political instrument. He's been to protest rallies and delivered campaign literature, but I don't want to brainwash him. To Chip and me--secular humanists from way back--going to a women's rights march or attending a political rally is kind of like going to church. It's a way to teach our moral code outside of our home with a community of like-minded individuals. Maybe that will sound like blasphemy to religious readers.
Frankly, overall, I'm not sure how to feel about this nascent political awakening. I'm proud that he can recognize bad in the world, but I'm worried that he is too young to be fretting about war and politics. How young is too young to hear about war and other worldly problems?
Should we turn off the NPR?