And here I am next in the June Blogchain of Absolute Write.
Wonderful participants, awesome writers and I’m very proud to be next to them in the chain. I’m having a bit of trouble though, understanding how one can start at weird chastity pants, cross the birds and bees talk and then end up at concentration camps. So, we’ve had a post about questions a child can have, and doors children do not want to open and on the other hand the visit of a concentration camp. I think I can combine that.
There’s all this horrible stuff going on in the world. Wars. Children dying. Adults dying of course. Starvation. And all those horrible things that somehow we can’t stop or are not trying hard enough to stop.
I know it’s going on. I know it’s happening but do I have to see it?
My mother thinks it’s not necessary to see all that’s going on. She reads about it but she will not look at it. She finds all those documentaries that show how the concentration camps all over Germany got opened up unnecessary. She says she knows it was horrible and she doesn’t have to see the images on top. What for, she asks? Why do I have to suffer and torture myself with such images, when I already know, it happened and it was utter hell?
I understand that point of view. However I was a person that always had to see. I wanted to know how it looked like. I wanted to know exactly how it happened.
So, as a child, we were about 14 years old when we started going through the World Wars in History. When one morning the teacher showed us one of the documentaries about the concentration camps he told us that if we didn’t want to see we could leave the room. I think two of the class left the room. The others stayed.
Some of the were clearly bored. Some of them weren’t paying attention and some of them somehow even found it funny.
Me, I was sitting there, looking at the TV, horrified. I could not look away. But what I saw I could not deal with. I started sobbing right there in the classroom and was crying through the whole movie. Did not leave the room though.
My mother was mad that I watched it.
She was mad that the teacher showed us such a thing.
And all I could think of, was that it was a horrible experience but if I had the choice again, I’d stay in the classroom.
Do you let your kids watch the news? Would you let them see such a documentary? Do you think you need to see images of horrible events or do you think it’s enough to know about them? I’m curious!
Check out the others.
Spittin’ (Out Words) Like a Llama
Polyamory
Life in Scribbletown
Polenth’s Quill
Auria Cortes
Blog in a Suitcase
Delirious
Asian Business
If you ask me anything I don’t know, I’m not going to answer.
As Yet Untitled
Puttin’ Words on Paper
Fumbling with Fiction
Rotating Bear
spynotes
Virtual Wordsmith
Asian Business is next up!
Tags: Absolute Write
I think we do need to know about and we do need to see it. But you can only watch so many documentaries on a horrible event. I think there is a difference between knowing it exists, seeing it either in real life or a documentary. And being bombarded with it every day with the idea that if you don’t see it everyday you are somehow a bad person.
I believe over here in America our big thing is still the slavery issue from our Civil War and earlier. It’s as if we don’t remember it every single day or feel guilty about what my ancestors did to their ancestors it makes me a bad person.
I’ve been to the museums and seen the documentaries. I just don’t know what I can really do now can I just live my life without someone trying to make me feel guilty. Maybe your mom is feeling something similar.
I think that we need to get this kind of experience from an early age. 12 seems to be a good age. In my childhood, I did not have that much access to video and TV. So, for me, access to this kind of documentaries was very limited. However, I used to read about wars and violence in newspapers from the age of 8-9.
I’m curious!
Hypothetically, if I had kids:
Do you let your kids watch the news?
No, because the news is propagandist corporate hogwash. The only context in which I would let any child under my care watch the news was if it involved lessons about commercialism, sensationalism, rhetoric, and logical fallacy and how to avoid those things–which would likely happen at some point.
Would you let them see such a documentary?
I would show it to them myself, then discuss it afterwards and assign community service to boot.
Do you think you need to see images of horrible events or do you think it’s enough to know about them?
Yes is not a strong enough word. When all you do is read about them or, god help you, hear about them through word of mouth, they’re not real, or at least they’re not any more real than a novel you read or a movie you see. The only reason people “don’t need to see that” is because on some level they want to hide from the reality of it, which is a luxury we can no longer afford.
Teenagers are on the road to becoming adults. Learning about the darker side of life is part of that.
A young child is another matter. Children develop at different rates, so I wouldn’t force them to watch the news or read newspapers. They’ll start to show an interest when they’re ready to know about the wider world. I wouldn’t stop them from having access to such things.
My son is seven and I try not to let him see much of the news. This isn’t that hard, because neither my husband nor I tend to watch TV news except when my husband is looking for sports scores. I don’t, however, actively try to prevent him from learning more about what’s going on in the world if he wants to know. I am more likely to hand him a newspaper, though, than show him a TV where I’m afraid the images might be more likely to haunt him. But I let him take the lead. It’s a tough line to walk, though. I want to protect him — it’s my instinct to protect him from the bad things of the world. But it’s also important that he be aware that there are bad things and that he knows what to do if he encounters them. But he needs to learn of things as he is ready to hear them. And he usually lets me know.
My TV and movie watching was never censored.
I think it’s important for children to see pictures because that is one way we develop empathy. Only hearing or reading stories develops sympathy – a wasted emotion.
Sometimes I think I am a very cold person, but the truth is that I am simply well shielded. I am empathic (believe it or not, I don’t care) and often feel the affects of the people around me. On the other hand, I can read about a tsunami swamping half a country and I think “We brought this on ourselves, and the world is overpopulated anyway.” I might pray that they are at peace, but I wouldn’t pray to stop the tragedies themselves… we reap what we sow as a race.
I ate my lunch without flinching as I watched a video, Red Asphalt, that is meant to scare teen drivers. I’ve seen some bad things in my life, though not much that would compare with the horrors and atrocities around the world. Still, I would watch. I know this was horribly rambly… sorry.
I think it really depends on the child, even more so than the age. What some kids are ready to see at one age, others might not be ready to see until far later.
It’s interesting, though, this emphasis on the visual — I’m not a very visual person, and sometimes I think I have an even harder time ridding my mind of things I’ve read!
Here’s something I remember: On 9-11, I was still in high school. We had TVs in our classrooms, and the teachers flipped on the news when we all started hearing news about things happening. When the administration started hearing about it, they made teachers turn off the TVs. Sometimes I wonder if this is a good decision, bad decision, etc. But here’s how I feel about it: these awful things are a part of history, and they have shaped the path that set us down the road we’re on now. I think it’s important to understand where we’ve been and how we got where we are.