Comment by hollerith
6 months ago
I don't recall any opinions about Vietnam and would probably have remembered if someone had expressed an opinion to me.
And the war or whatever we call the situation in Gaza would be something I'd want to shield my 13-year-old child from having any knowledge of if I were a parent -- for basically the same reason I'd want to shield them from learning about sadomasochistic sex as long as possible.
Just curious, why would you want to shield them from reality? At 13 they’re only a few years from becoming a full fledged adult. Unsheltered life is coming at them fast. I don’t have children yet, so maybe my perspective would change if I did, but (while I would not intentionally expose them to harsher realities) I would never shield my kids. Instead, I would want them to be curious and ask questions while I still had a large influence in their lives, so that I could help guide them and give them tools and strategies to navigate a complex world. I experienced a fairly sheltered (religious/conservative) upbringing socially, but we had a subscription to US News & World report during the height of the GWOT which I read cover to cover. I understood geopolitics before I understood how to make friends. My transition to adult life was tough socially, but I at least had a decent understanding of how the world worked on a macro scale. If children are not sheltered socially, then they’re already encountering pretty much everything through their social circles. And with the internet, 10x+ that.
I guess it's part of growing up when there's no longer any living memory of war on your soil.
Anyway I need to ask the same question I always do in such conversations: what's the plan when this hypothetical child hits legal age and immediately receives the legal right to learn about all of this at once?
It was constantly on the nightly news. The Vietnam War was one of the first widely filmed conflicts. Plus, there were regular violent protests against the draft. I find it hard to believe that the adults around you didn't have strong opinions about it. Did that not interest you or affect you?
I am bit younger, but I was exposed to the outfall of Vietnam through Hollywood films and documentaries.
Your (hypothetical) 13-year old child is probably learning about it in their social studies class. Also: What age do you think German children begin to learn about the National Socialist/WW-2 era? I guess around 12-13 years old, and they turn out pretty well-adjusted to the world (in my humble opinion).