Lily's Thoughts on War

Lili'u has a large world map above her bed, and at different points we've talked about where we are, where our families are, places we want to go, and where important things are happening. One thing we've talked about is the war in Iraq.

At first Lily seemed to think the name of the place was "Wariniraq", but then she came to understand the difference between the name and the ongoing event. Lili'u has shown a lot of interest lately in sorting out "how we feel" about different things, and what's "good," "not good," "OK," and "not nice." It's an interesting conversation to be in with a 3 1/2 year old - for me it means sorting out competing ideas about teaching my daughter about the world without limiting her free thought and efforts to sort things out for herself, while at the same time acknowledging that she just doesn't know what these things are yet, so needs some basic categories and definitions.

This morning at breakfast she said, out of the blue, "we don't like war in Iraq, but we like Iraq." (That's a distinction we've made with her - the difference between policies and people, on any side of an issue.) "But soldiers can stop war. They can say 'Stop!'" - and she puts out her hand like a crossing guard - "and they can fight and make it stop!"

Interesting. I think I mentioned the word soldier to her recently. I said soldiers are the people who fight wars, intending to distinguish between the actual people who literally carry guns in the streets of another country, and the American leaders (and electorate) who sent them there. I know we won't sort all of this out at breakfast...

"Well," I said, "the soldiers' job is to fight. And fighting can't make the war stop. When you and your friend Lela both want a toy, and you both grab it and you're fighting over it, does grabbing it and yelling and fighting more make the argument stop?"

"No."

"That's right. The only way to stop fighting is for one of the people fighting to stop and use their words. They can just let go and let the other person have the toy, or they can say 'Let's talk about how to share the toy.' But fighting doesn't make fighting stop."

That sounds right. Maybe not real practical in a geopolitical sense, but who said idealism is always practical?

Then Malia told her that our leaders, our "government" in Washington DC, are the ones who can stop the war.

"They can say 'Stop!'" - another crossing guard hand.

Then I said "And it's our job to tell our leaders what to do - that's something that everybody can do to stop war. Little girls and boys and grownups and old people can all tell our leaders that we want war to stop."

She seemed to like that. She's all about empowerment.

Maybe at dinner tonight I'll tell her about "laying yourself on the gears of the machine" to make it stop, true democracy vs. corporate plutocracy, and the entrenched military-industrial-consumer complex.

Or we might just talk about the cat.