"Mama, have I ever been anywhere where there's this many people before?"
That was the second question from the wise little one today, and by far the easiest. My son and I were standing shoulder to shoulder (well, shoulder to kneecap in his case) with over 20,000 of our fellow Portlanders, all out to protest the utter insanity which George W Bush seems hellbent on perpetrating upon the people of Iraq. I thought for just a moment, and then said "No, you've never been in a place where there's this many people all at one time."
We'd walked down to the protest together. He's always up for a stroll downtown with me, especially if he thinks we might stop at a coffee place for a snack. On the way down, he asked where we were going. "Remember the time we walked downtown at night and took candles with us?"
"Oh, yes," he interrupted, "When everyone there was sad about the very good man who died in the very little airplane."
That would be Paul Wellstone. I thought that night was hard, explaining why so many people here were sad because someone from some other place had died, not to mention talking about the plane crash, since he knows I travel pretty often for work. But the questions at the Wellstone candlelight vigil were nothing compared to today.
We'd tried to hook up with friends at the rally, but there was no hope of finding anyone in particular there. So instead, we found a comfortable pocket in the crowd and settled in, and all the questions began.
"Mama, look! That sign says "No War". What does 'war' mean?" Kid's reading at nearly a third-grade level, but he pronounced "war" as "ware". It's not a word he's ever heard used. Fleetingly, I wondered if we could go back to the simple questions - why do airplanes crash, for example - and why do good people die?
"Well, war is a very bad thing. Very bad. All of these people are down here because they think war is a bad thing, and they want to make sure it doesn't happen."
"But what is it? What does 'war' mean?"
Nothing like that question to make one completely rethink one's parenting strategy. Why didn't we just let him watch the flippin' Barney videos, why did we decide that we would never answer any "why" question with "because", and why in the hell did I bring him downtown to this anti-war rally in the first place, instead of leaving him home with some nice videos of dinosaurs ripping each other's heads off and then dying when the massive comet hit the earth?
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 | | ABOUT SARAH
Sarah Crary Gregory lives in Portland with her son, several Macintoshes, a linux-based machine, and a wireless LAN. She enjoys _Goodnight Moon_, Dr. Seuss, and choo-choos, as well as sendmail error messages and good coffee. She wrangled the MOMS and ALTFAMILY lists on Queernet from 11/1998 until 11/2002. In her spare time, she works full-time in Oregon's "Silicon Forest", working on usability issues and technical documentation for a large high-tech company. Contact: geeklet@elemental.com
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