When I Was Young

From TODAY, Voices

Thursday December 11, 2008

We parents must help our children make sense of the mindless violence they see on the news daily

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Subana Hall

MY seven-year-old and I often have conversations about world affairs and as most children do, my child too tries to put the world right. Although I am often intrigued by her interpretation of war and order in the world, I was most moved by the comments she made this weekend when we discussed the Mumbai bombings.

The discussion arose when she saw me reading a Weekend Xtra piece, “The Winner is ... Iran” (Dec 6). Leaning over from the back seat of the car she asked, “Mummy, who is Iran? Is that him?”, pointing to a picture of an analyst on the page.

I explained to her that Iran was a country and briefly described what the article was about. As my seven-year-old has been watching the news of the recent Mumbai attacks, she sat up and asked more questions about the article and wanted to know more.

She asked me in all innocence: “Why did those people kill the others? It is not nice to kill others, is it mummy?” If only everyone had the simple wisdom of a seven-year-old, I thought to myself.

As most parents would, I explained to my inquisitive daughter that sadly, in the real world, not everyone is as wise as her and that the world would certainly be a better place if only every person had nice thoughts like her.

She still did not understand why or how people could commit such violence... but then again, neither do I.

She then asked if there was a place on earth that had not been bombed before, to which I replied I am sure there is and that we needed to do some research on that. As our conversation, although meaningful, was getting a little factual and deep, I was almost ready to wrap it up when she suddenly blurted out: “Will Singapore ever be bombed, Mummy? I hope not.” To which I replied: “Me too, sweetheart”.

At this point I felt real sadness in my heart that my child has such fear and I cannot begin to describe how protective I felt over her.

After a short pause, she concluded our chat with this statement: “I wish we could move to a planet where there will be no bombing, Mummy”. With that, she looked out of the window and stared at the petrol station.

I looked at her and thought: What powerful words from a seven-year-old. She was clearly thinking deeply about what had happened and empathised with those killed unfairly.

I was moved by her empathy at such a young age.

On one hand, I was sad that she was growing up witnessing such horrific events; on the other hand, I was proud that she was one of the rays of hope of our future generation.

So let us — the present generation of parents from all around the world — do our part in instilling a sense of unity and right and wrong in our children for a better and more peaceful world tomorrow. Vigilance alone will not be enough. We have to continue to sow seeds of love, tolerance and empathy.

We can’t give up hope yet.

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The writer is a former Television Corporation of Singapore journalist who was born here, but moved to England. She has since moved back to Singapore.