On Tour With the Kid CHLOE O'SULLIVAN
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Navigating Tough Questions in a TikTok Era
that left me feeling like I was the dumbest person in the room. Kid: Mum, who are the people beheading babies? Me: Bloody hell, kid we are in the drivethrough at McDonalds. I’m sorry you had to hear My mother was this beacon of all knowledge about that; it’s pretty awful. Where did that come when I was a kid. She was very bright, a up in conversation? big reader, socially conscious, and I don’t Kid: TikTok. remember ever asking her a big question to Me: Well, it’s a very long story. You know the which she didn’t have the answer. Cut to me as people who were murdered by the Germans the parent of a pre-teen, and I feel like I'm either in the Second World War (kid says yep). Well, not smart enough or not prepared enough for they have this centuries-old connection to this what my kid wants to know. particular part of the land, and after the war, It has occurred to me that one of the big lots of people signed an agreement to make the differences between my childhood and today is state of Israel on that land. The only problem is there did seem to be this shared understanding. that in the time between, things had changed in You sat down and watched the news together, 1948 when they made that deal; the Palestinians so discussions would come from things you were already on that land, so they then lost have seen together. You did that because there access for that state to be made. So, the people wasn't a choice in the 70s and 80s. There was who wanted to be there to have this safe place not much else to do at night, and we only had and a homeland from the start had neighbours two channels in the country town I grew up in. who hated them because they lost a place that The news you saw together was also bound meant a lot to them, and a fight has been going by journalist ethics and rules about the kind on since then. The problem is that the people of things they would just pop on the screen Visit warning, www.intouchmagazine.com.au/advertise and download a School Holiday who were murdered are Guide not their government, without which does not exist on media kit, email getintouch@intouchmagazine.com.au or the call people 4943-0888 and whotoday! are killed when Israel's TikTok. government retaliates are not their government To demonstrate – this is an actual either. The whole thing is just really sad. conversation I had with my pre-teen recently
Kid: Mum, I just wanted to know the name of the people who did it. Me: Hamas. Kid: THANK YOU! It was a simple question. I returned to concentrating on the road and spent the rest of the day worried about whether I’d explained that well enough. It's an extraordinarily complex situation, and did I articulate the difference between an act of terrorism and a retaliatory act of war? I know I have parental controls on her devices, but I know I have been seeking out information on the conflict because I have a friend who has family in Israel and have seen photos and heard stories that I can never unsee and never unhear. How do I make sure she doesn’t have to see that? I didn’t sleep well that night. I lay there and worried that her questions would only get more complicated, and I needed to be smarter and more prepared for these questions. I don’t want to be one of the reasons the kid ends up in therapy. I finally started to drift off to sleep and realised I hadn’t made the cupcakes that she was meant to take to school the next morning. I got up, turned on the oven, started mixing the batter, and thought about how to more succinctly explain a centuries-old conflict. You know, the usual thing mums do at 2am.
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