Dillinger
Guerrilla Ontologist
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2000
- Posts
- 26,152
This was in USA Today on Thursday and I thought it was worth sharing:
Shelter young minds from war's heavier burdens
By Robin Garrison Leach
Our bomb shelter was really just a dirt cellar under our rented home in rural Missouri. A rusty doorknob that was too big for my 6-year-old palm waited for older, stronger wrists to open it up. And that was fine with me.
During the early 1960s, when many of today's parents were children, the moms and dads I knew took great pains to make sure we felt secure amid the talk of bomb shelters and missile crises and war. Nothing seemed safer than the world they provided for us; they shouldered the burden of worry and gave us a chance to be kids.
Now we are the adults. It's our turn to take on the responsibility of protecting our own children from the terrorism and war jitters that blanket our country today. Instead of filling our kids' days with code-orange reports, we need to calm down and remember the eternal impact our jittery actions can have on those we love most.
That does not mean that our children have to be ignorant of the world's realities. But adults need to take the time to monitor and explain the daily flood of news reports and set limits on the information they provide.
Into the dark
It was a warm June day when Mom showed us the bomb shelter. "You need to see what's down here — where the lamp is and such," she told my two older brothers and me as she gripped the huge doorknob and leaned into the door. It shuddered, gave out a groan and opened its jaws.
None of us wanted to be first down the musty steps. "Oh, go on," Mom chided. "Don't be chicken."
It worked. My oldest and least-chicken brother plodded down the stairs and disappeared. I was the last kid inside. I crept past my mother, bumped into the brother in front of me and waited for light.
My mother's fleshy arm held a candle at shoulder height as she stepped in behind us. She floated forward, shooing the dark away.
Everything was brown. The walls were clods of crumbly dirt, the floor the same ground we played on outside, only without grass or clover. With a graceful, game-show sweep of her dishpan hands, Mom began the tour.
"There are jars of food on the shelves here," she began. "Your Grandma put up these vegetables, just for us, and they're perfectly good." We squirmed in unison, the dim light masking our disgust. I could see slices of potatoes swimming in viscous liquid. Pale, drowning green beans. Blood-red pickled beets. It was a mad scientist's laboratory of hated veggies.
"Water," she announced, patting an old gallon Kool-Aid pitcher on a shelf below the vegetables. "I put fresh water in here all the time, right out of the kitchen." We eyed the pitcher suspiciously, hoping we'd never have to take a taste.
We toured the rest of the bomb shelter: Old blankets in trash bags. Matches and toilet paper. An ominous box of medicines, Merthiolate and adhesive strips hid behind Dad's old transistor radio.
The tour ends
Mom stood before us and studied our faces in turn, linking her determined, confident eyes with our innocent, trusting ones.
"So," Mom declared with a clap. "That's it." She pursed her lips the way she did when finishing a sink full of dishes or folding towels. Without another word, she ushered us back up the dank stairs and into everyday life.
"Ah. What a pretty day, huh?" Mom smiled and smoothed her apron. I watched her shadow disappear and waited for the slam of the kitchen door. I sucked in a lungful of the childhood my mother kept safe for me and heard my favorite swing creak an invitation. Off I ran, carefree and ignorant, to enjoy my unchanged world.
Nothing else was ever said about the bomb shelter. Whatever was going on in the world was grownup business, not meant for little ears. No fear would alter the timbre of our parents' protective, confident voices — the voices and lives that stood between us and a world we were not ready to understand.
Shielding fragile hearts with loving reassurances and mature restraint is as essential to our children's emotional safety as is protecting their bodies from harm. That delicate balance is never easy — especially in today's world of 24/7 news coverage — but many of our own parents saw how important it was. Their strength was a gift to us back then; we must give the same to our own children now.
Robin Garrison Leach is a freelance writer who lives in Foley, Mo.
Shelter young minds from war's heavier burdens
By Robin Garrison Leach
Our bomb shelter was really just a dirt cellar under our rented home in rural Missouri. A rusty doorknob that was too big for my 6-year-old palm waited for older, stronger wrists to open it up. And that was fine with me.
During the early 1960s, when many of today's parents were children, the moms and dads I knew took great pains to make sure we felt secure amid the talk of bomb shelters and missile crises and war. Nothing seemed safer than the world they provided for us; they shouldered the burden of worry and gave us a chance to be kids.
Now we are the adults. It's our turn to take on the responsibility of protecting our own children from the terrorism and war jitters that blanket our country today. Instead of filling our kids' days with code-orange reports, we need to calm down and remember the eternal impact our jittery actions can have on those we love most.
That does not mean that our children have to be ignorant of the world's realities. But adults need to take the time to monitor and explain the daily flood of news reports and set limits on the information they provide.
Into the dark
It was a warm June day when Mom showed us the bomb shelter. "You need to see what's down here — where the lamp is and such," she told my two older brothers and me as she gripped the huge doorknob and leaned into the door. It shuddered, gave out a groan and opened its jaws.
None of us wanted to be first down the musty steps. "Oh, go on," Mom chided. "Don't be chicken."
It worked. My oldest and least-chicken brother plodded down the stairs and disappeared. I was the last kid inside. I crept past my mother, bumped into the brother in front of me and waited for light.
My mother's fleshy arm held a candle at shoulder height as she stepped in behind us. She floated forward, shooing the dark away.
Everything was brown. The walls were clods of crumbly dirt, the floor the same ground we played on outside, only without grass or clover. With a graceful, game-show sweep of her dishpan hands, Mom began the tour.
"There are jars of food on the shelves here," she began. "Your Grandma put up these vegetables, just for us, and they're perfectly good." We squirmed in unison, the dim light masking our disgust. I could see slices of potatoes swimming in viscous liquid. Pale, drowning green beans. Blood-red pickled beets. It was a mad scientist's laboratory of hated veggies.
"Water," she announced, patting an old gallon Kool-Aid pitcher on a shelf below the vegetables. "I put fresh water in here all the time, right out of the kitchen." We eyed the pitcher suspiciously, hoping we'd never have to take a taste.
We toured the rest of the bomb shelter: Old blankets in trash bags. Matches and toilet paper. An ominous box of medicines, Merthiolate and adhesive strips hid behind Dad's old transistor radio.
The tour ends
Mom stood before us and studied our faces in turn, linking her determined, confident eyes with our innocent, trusting ones.
"So," Mom declared with a clap. "That's it." She pursed her lips the way she did when finishing a sink full of dishes or folding towels. Without another word, she ushered us back up the dank stairs and into everyday life.
"Ah. What a pretty day, huh?" Mom smiled and smoothed her apron. I watched her shadow disappear and waited for the slam of the kitchen door. I sucked in a lungful of the childhood my mother kept safe for me and heard my favorite swing creak an invitation. Off I ran, carefree and ignorant, to enjoy my unchanged world.
Nothing else was ever said about the bomb shelter. Whatever was going on in the world was grownup business, not meant for little ears. No fear would alter the timbre of our parents' protective, confident voices — the voices and lives that stood between us and a world we were not ready to understand.
Shielding fragile hearts with loving reassurances and mature restraint is as essential to our children's emotional safety as is protecting their bodies from harm. That delicate balance is never easy — especially in today's world of 24/7 news coverage — but many of our own parents saw how important it was. Their strength was a gift to us back then; we must give the same to our own children now.
Robin Garrison Leach is a freelance writer who lives in Foley, Mo.
