MomsTalk: Sharing the Royal Wedding, Shielding from Bin Laden Death

The past few weeks have been full of dramatic new stories.  Between the royal wedding, the tornadoes in the U.S., and the capturing and killing of OBL there has been an influx of both wonderful and horrifying information.   Please let us know how much of these stories you shared with your children:

Kathleen Weil, McLean resident, married with three daughters and a sheltie.

The morning of the royal wedding I hadn’t intended to sit glued to the television, fascinated by all the pomp, glamour and hats.  But I did.  I was joined by my oldest daughter and we laughed and ogled and immensely enjoyed the specatacle. 

Much of the time I was remembering Princess Diana’s wedding.  My family was at Rehoboth beach on vacation that year, and all five of my sisters,  my mom and I gathered around the tv to watch that wedding.  I was wondering if my own daughter would, thirty years later and maybe another royal wedding to watch, remember happily watching this wedding with her mom.  There is something so special about a wedding day, and yes, this one was over the top one that probably most of us won’t have.  But still, seeing the carriage, the horses, the footmen, the guards, the Queen, was a visual treat.

Then came the capture and killing of OBL.  I had heard it on the news the night the story broke, and purposely didn’t have the news on the next morning when our children were up.  The images they were showing of his face were so scary to me, and I have powerful memories of exactly where I was and what I was doing when 9/11 happened. 

In fact, my condo in Shirlington where I lived at the time, filled with smoke from the Pentagon.  It’s one thing to explain who Prince Harry and Will are, but quite another to explain the evil of OBL.

  My children are young, and I was pretty sure nothing would be said at school.  It’s not that we don’t talk about news that isn’t good.  We have talked about the recent natural disasters related to the tornadoes in the U.S., and the tsunami in Japan.  They have even seen some news video of trees down and houses crushed.  However, these were random weather events that weren’t caused by hatred.  The bottom line is that our daughters are much too young to process issues related to OBL, but that doesn’t mean in the future we won’t have discussions regarding hatred and violence, and what can be done to counter them. 

  For now though, we have decided to protect them from the awful story and images of OBL.