Remembering 9/11: Real Reality TV
Posted
September 11, 2006 at
5:17 am by
Amy
My kids were nine and six on September 11, 2001.?‚? They stayed at school that day, and heard appropriate dribs and drabs of what what was going on.?‚? At home, their father and I, who were still married at the time, told them that terrorists flew airplanes into the Twin Towers in New York and they collapsed, killing thousands of people.?‚? How sad it was.?‚? How wrong it was.?‚? How sad we were. How wronged we felt. I was outwardly distraught, inwardly panic-stricken.?‚? I sat riveted to the television watching the unimaginable events come to life before my eyes. But my kids, safe in a Midwestern suburb, with their parents safe not far away, continued watching watching Sponge Bob, Power Rangers and Arthur.
Now, on September 11, 2006, my kids are 14 and 11. They?‚? are much better equipped to handle some of the images that will be replayed today. They’re politically aware and they’re savvy.?‚? But, I’m still going to choose what they see today, and how they see it.?‚? At their ages, five years is a lifetime.?‚?
They remember nothing?‚? but growing up in a world when homeland?‚? security is?‚? familiar terminology?‚? and the war on terror is a known entity.?‚? They will live their most formative and memorable years at a time where we do not take safety for granted.?‚? They instinctively?‚? take off their shoes before going through airport security.?‚? ?‚? Their trips?‚? to New York City will only ever include visits to a changing Ground Zero and pointing fingers to where the towers once stood, and then fell.
While I believe it’s my job to convey the seriousness of the events that enveloped our nation that day, I also believe in allowing?‚? my children to continue to exist in the safety of their world that was untouched.?‚? While it feels like yesterday to me, it feels like history to them.?‚?
I don’t want my?‚? kids completely shielded from reality,?‚? I just want them to be kids.?‚? I want to help them understand, at?‚? an age-appropriate level,?‚? what happened then as well as what is happening now.?‚? What I?‚? don’t want is for this information to color the world they know - which is good - albeit with its own inherent flaws.?‚? ?‚?
I usually encourage my kids to hunker down next to me and watch the news.
Not today.?‚?
Tags: 9/11, kids, Parenting, September-11th, teens, television |
4 Responses to “Remembering 9/11: Real Reality TV”
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1. Prescott said:
September 11, 2006 @ 8:57 am
I can completely relate. I asked my oldest (3rd grade) yesterday if he knew what “9/11″ was, curious to see if they had talked about it in school. He answered “no”, and fortunately dropped the subject and went back to what he was doing.
I think I’ll keep him blissfully ignorant for a while longer…
2. Jody M. said:
September 11, 2006 @ 6:30 pm
I think that’s the saddest part of what happened on 911, that our children lost their innocense by no fault of our own, but by people who enjoy that fear and loss. It makes me angry.
3. Bonnie said:
September 12, 2006 @ 9:20 am
Good sensible parenting. It’s nice to hear of kids partially shielded from 9-11. GIve them just enough information and let them watch Sponge Bob. When they are older, share it all and impress upon them the importance and significance of the day. Of course growing up Post 9-11, the significance it around every day through new security and more cognizent people who check everyone out.
4. J said:
September 12, 2006 @ 8:43 pm
Oh, God, I got into the worst conversation with Maya yesterday…and I don’t know how it happened. It started with September 11th, and then we were talking about how time passes, and at some point people won’t remember it themselves anymore, just through stories…and somehow, not sure how, that got to the subject of HIV/AIDS, and my friend who died from that horrible disease in the mid 90s. From there to Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany. With my paniked brain wondering if this was all too much for her, she’s only 10, and here I am ready to cry while I’m explaining the absolute horrors of the world to her…and there she was, safe and secure that her life is OK, no worries, and so she can look at all of it with the distance of one who need not worry. And the part of me that said, on Sept. 11th, this is too much, this is not a safe world, I will have no more children…that part of me hoped that she is right. That she will always be safe. I wish they all could be.