Dear Abby,
Please explain to me just how the f*** I'm supposed to talk to my teenage daughter about torture.
Thanks much!
Confused in Wisconsin
context below...
I was watching the news the other night while my teenage daughter was doing homework on the living room floor. A piece on the Iraqi torture prison caught her attention, and she watched it intently.
"They tortured people?"
"Sounds like it."
"That's mean!!!"
"Yeah..."
<Long awkward pause>
"We don't torture people, do we?"
I was completely unprepared for this. So I just stammered around and eventually said "Um, well, we have. A little bit. I think."
<Horrified look>
"WHY?!?"
"I don't know. We have some mean people running our government right now."
End of conversation. I had just witnessed the death of innocence in my daughter's eyes. At least as far as our country's reputation in the world was concerned.
Jennie knows my feelings on Bush. Perhaps in imitation of me, perhaps because she is more sophisticated than I give her credit for, she hates Bush too. She even has a very clever anti-Bush graphic that she uses as a part of her MSN identity when chatting with friends. She just turned fifteen (so she isn't THAT young), and doesn't watch the news closely, so she really has never caught on to the depth of depravity that this administration is capable of. But now she has.
Just a couple of days ago, she had that simplistic view of the United States that we all pick up in school. We're the good guys. Other countries do the bad things. I literally watched that dissolve away, and it was as painful as watching her catch on to the whole Santa Claus thing.
Another myth busted.
It was inevitable. It had to happen. She had to know sooner or later. But like other awkward conversations, it is probably better handled while fully prepared for it.
What does this do to her? Sometimes the bubble world is more comfortable. I don't advocate keeping anyone in the dark, but damn... How young is too young to learn things like this? Maybe I should have talked to her about this a long time ago. Maybe I should have lied and allowed the myth to continue. The more I think about it, the more uncertain I am. Obviously, she and I will be talking more. All I know is I feel like I let her down somehow, one way or the other.
What do you think? Other than that it totally sucks to have to address a question like this...