As I\u2019ve probably noted too many times in these pages, I am an addicted bookworm, and always have been. The pages of my books have always been escape (albeit often to realities more difficult than my own), and in modern days I find myself super-stimulated. Audiobooks in the car, downloaded library audiobooks in the gym and on the treadmill, and usually 3-4 paper books on my nightstand being read simultaneously. And then I discovered than one of the treadmills in the gym has a connection to my iPhone, essentially allowing me to watch films on my Netflix \u201cinstant\u201d queue.<\/p>\n
This brings me, albeit in a roundabout way, to the film I am still watching called Sarah\u2019s Key<\/em><\/a>, based on the book by Tatiana de Rosnay and some thoughts that have cropped up.<\/p>\n For any of you who have not seen the film or read the novel, I will only say that it depicts the French roundup of Jews in 1942 Paris and temporary incarceration at the Velodrome d\u2019hiver<\/a> (winter bicycle velodrome) before being sent off to the Nazi murder camps out east\u2014detailing the degree of French collaboration and ease with which property was stolen from Jews sent to their deaths. Highly recommended, although I haven\u2019t finished watching the film and I feel deflated and as though I\u2019ve swallowed a lemon. Whole.<\/p>\n One of the things that parents have to struggle with is the balance between keeping our children safe, secure, happy and confident\u2014yet at the same time projecting the dangers and terror of mankind\u2019s horrific deeds. Shooting miners in S. Africa. Genocide in Rwanda. Atrocities in Africa between warring tribes and religions. Random murders in schools and movie theaters in the US. 9-11. The murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. The holocaust. And tragically, the list goes on and on.<\/p>\n Unlike some of my learned and erudite colleagues here on Occam\u2019s Typewriter, who write phenomenally well and often put together forceful cases for their contentions with citations, references and links\u2014and perhaps eschew those of us less gifted (or perhaps simply lazier who have not taken the time to do their homework)\u2014I neither have supportive literature nor do I have any concrete thoughts on the matter.<\/p>\n What I do know, is that at least until a certain age, providing a child with love and stability is key to his or her emotional development. I\u2019m sure that large bodies of research support that, as modern child psychology seems to be based on this. So taking this as a \u201cgiven,\u201d how do we parents introduce the concept of evil\u2014not in an abstract or fairy tale manner, but in relation to our lives at present?<\/p>\n It\u2019s no secret that children of holocaust survivors have been plagued by tremendous emotional and psychological difficulties. Such is the case in Sarah\u2019s Key<\/em>, and such is the case in my own life. When I was about 12 years old, my 15 year old neighbor and fellow back-garage basketball player took his own life for reasons unknown. He was the son of Hungarian holocaust survivors, and one can only imagine what influence this must have had.<\/p>\n So how do we inform, yet protect and shield our children from the horrors of the world? Is there a magic age where children will be able to put things into perspective, to balance good with evil and not become demoralized? Is there any measure of the maturity and emotional stability needed in a child before one breaches pure evil in conversations? Or does the information filter in from school and the environment before parents can even begin?<\/p>\n I don\u2019t have any answers. Sometimes the evil is so rampant that it\u2019s the purity of my own children that keep me sane.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As I\u2019ve probably noted too many times in these pages, I am an addicted bookworm, and always have been. The pages of my books have always been escape (albeit often to realities more difficult than my own), and in modern … Continue reading