Reply #57: I'm all in with you on that one [View All]

[whatever4]

I sometimes...okay frequently, have trouble even explaining to my kids what's going on, in politics, with the war, with oil futures, all of it. And it's not like I'm an expert, so I guess to them it sounds pretty silly. Sometimes, when they spout popular beliefs back at me, it's like dealing with little, silly, neocons. NO dear, the war is BAD. No, it wasn't to save the Iraqi people. It was about oil. Our president is a very wealthy oil man, and in fact, the whole war was probably about oil.

It's a hard concept, while they're busy learning stuff in school.

School. Groan. School function at a church, and it was a band thing, class participation required going to the church, so I couldn't exactly boycott it. Or at least, I didn't, that time. Church has a big pin up board. On it are flyers, and their serious subject matter is the story of a father extremely upset because his kid learned about gay parents in school. The school had the audacity to mention real, living homosexual people, with kids, in front of his son. Those were the only flyers on the board.

Where the school sends my kid for educational activities ...cares only about homosexuality and it's being "wrong". Period.

State sponsored religion? Or just the next best thing?

But for all that, for my concerns about it, I'm the odd man out. Wow. I feel like a genius in this climate. It just isn't right. REally hard to explain to my kids, it starts sounding like it's all "us verses them", and it isn't healthy at all. But it's true.

I just have to sit back and tell them, hey, I didn't make the rules, and it's definitely NOT my fault all this stuff is going on, just for talking about it. Talking about politics as if it matters. Don't kill the messenger. I didn't just dream this stuff up.

But it's like you said, to wind up this rant (when will I stop?!) getting our kids through it is the only priority, at this point. I just have a hard time preparing them for it. Hard time explaining it, telling them what to expect, except that it will be bad. It sounds WAY like Chicken Little. But, if I wait until things are well and truly nuts to talk about stuff, they'd be even more lost. When it all happens. Have to see danger coming to best avoid it. I want to give them fair warning. What if I'm not around in 5 years? It's very hard to explain the world to them, and to warn them about it.