This Day In History...

Far more interesting is HOW they explain it.

"You see, Noah, about 35 years ago the United States government supported these really awful people in Afghanistan, and yada yada yada . . . "

 

I didn't think there was a worse option than just telling my 4-year-old the truth.

But a lecture on 40 years of complex geopolitics might just be it.

 

'Sote: You're not going to clean up the dishes? Oh, Ok ... you go upstairs to your room. I'll be up in a minute to review the history of the CIA in Iran. And mister, you are going to be sorry!

 

"Well, son, it really all started in 1939 when they discovered oil in the Persian Gulf...you know what, to really understand it you have to go back to this thing called the Ottoman Empire...Actually, hold on. OK, in the late 1700s there was this guy named Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab..."

 

My daughter is 9 and she has no concept of what 9-11 was or is. I'm fine with that. I think that idea of people committing suicide to kill others is a subject ill-suited to anyone under, say, 12.

 

You know what? On this day on the calendar of all days? You can go and get fucked.

 

Good question.

He's 8 now. He might have learned about it at school first. He's reading a book now called, "What Were the Twin Towers?" He's a bit of a history buff anyway, so that's no surprise.

He's been asking a few times the last few days why the 9/11 hijackers did what they did. I tell him that Osama bin Laden did not agree with U.S. policy in the Middle East.

He's a question asker, big-time. ("Why? Why? Why?") I finally told him that I had a 500-page book called "The Looming Tower" by a famous magazine writer and he was welcome to read it if he wanted.