Have you seen the new advertisements from the Ad Council and The Department of Homeland Security? It looks like a normal PSA for working out a plan for you and your children in case of emergency. Then, the words,
terrorist attack, are added.
Most parents have plans in place without being told to do it by the government. What makes me angry is the use of the words "terrorist attacks.” As if earthquakes, global warming, forest fires, mudslides, hurricanes and tsunamis are not enough to worry our children. No, let us throw in the specter of terrorists to scare our kids.
What is the deal with the whole culture of fear that has slowly choked the joy and happiness out of our lives since 9/11? Why do politicians (and you know whom I mean) keep bringing up terrorism, whenever their rankings drop?
I grew up with the threat of the Bomb. One of my earliest memories is of the Cuban Missile crisis, generally considered the closest moment of escalation to Nuclear War that we faced during the Cold War.
Then there was the assassination of JFK, the killing of his cousin, Bobby Kennedy, and the cold-blooded murder of Martin Luther King Jr. Add to this civil rights workers being killed in the South, white police officers turning fire hoses and Police dogs lose on peaceful protesters. Then there were the riots in Watts, the Democratic Convention of 1968, the killings at Kent State, the fictitious reason for our entry into the Viet Nam War . . .
I never expected to live to see 20, let alone 30 or a half-century. Did this expectation affect the way I lived my life? You bet. Why worry about college when the world is going to hell in a hand basket? Why not live for today because tomorrow may not come? Drugs, sure; reality sucks. An entire generation of anxious young adults grew to maturity living with the bomb.
The main thing I am trying to say is that living with fear is not a good thing for children. Yes, teach your children what to do in case of an emergency, any emergency. Do not single out terrorism as something of which we must live in fear. Rather, prepare the best you can and let God do the rest.
