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So last week’s blog, Bin Laden’s Last Act of Terror, inspired a Sacramento Bee front page article for which I was interviewed (How to Talk to Kids About Bin Laden).
The pride I felt for sparking a newsworthy story in the mainstream media was quickly torpedoed by the online response to it.
It was mean.
It was mainly a bunch of faceless pseudonyms trivializing what was essentially my parenting decision to shelter my kids from the evils of the world as long as I could.
Even though I should’ve ignored it for what it was – armchair quarterbacks feeling courage to be flippant and condescending in their anonymity – I couldn’t resist throwing down a comment of my own.
For these people who obviously took a back seat to parenting (if they even had children) I challenged, “If it’s all so easy to understand, what are you going to say to your kid when they’re now afraid to get on an airplane or wakes up screaming from a nightmare that a bad man was coming to get them? How was your simple explanation then?”
What I really wanted to say was, “Get back to me in ten years and let’s see how your “torpedo of truth” raised children are doing in comparison to mine. Let’s see whose kids are in Harvard and who’s visiting theirs in San Quentin.”
Did I just say that out loud?
Anyway, with all this going down three days before Mother’s Day I couldn’t help but to feel wounded by what I perceived as a direct attack on my parenting.
But then Mother’s Day came and I was treated to a lovely breakfast in bed,
precious homemade cards, and showered with love and affection for simply being Mom. It was just what I needed to remind me of the great job I am doing to the only people it really matters to: my children.