What a strange week. Put massively into perspective by the Norwegian tragedy. I had nightmares last night about a man in a police uniform roaming the woods and calling out “come out to play” before shooting almost 100 children in cold blood. If I’m having nightmares, then what about the children who have been hearing and reading about it, let alone those who were tragically there. How can somebody do that and what do you do with him now? I am totally against capital punishment and somehow, in this case, it almost seems like the easy option. Perhaps a slow and painful journey into old age would be more appropriate. Slightly concerned that it seems the maximum sentence you can get for murder in Norway is 21 years – 14 for good behaviour. Hopefully they can make a new rule for a new beast. How does Norway come to terms with something like this? Incomprehensible and appalling beyond belief.
As a parent it really does chill you to the bone. You send your child off to summer camp (or somewhere else without you) with some trepidation, hoping they don’t have a serious accident, or are miserable for any reason and you want their new experiences to be not only positive but to stand them in good stead for their future life as an independent adult who is happy to step out of their comfort zone in order to meet new people and learn new things.
“Your current safe boundaries were once unknown frontiers”.
I like that saying. It reminds me of how we grow. Of how children feel when they step into unknown territory and regardless of terrible tragedies we still have to try and put ourselves into unfamiliar circumstances often in order to learn new things. You are meant to scare yourself a little bit every day – difficult as that may be sometimes. Especially after something this devastating – but the worst that can happen is that we are affected by this tragedy to the point where things change dramatically for young people and that they don’t get together in groups to enjoy themselves. We need to be brave and carry on doing the things we do. Then he won’t have won.
Muddling Along
July 25, 2011I see it as a perpetual stretching of the distance we can cope with being away – my biggest struggle is to give my children the space they need despite the awful things I read in the press
So hard for children as well reading about these things and understanding that they are freak disasters whilst understanding the impact on the individuals of that tragedy
kelloggsville
July 25, 2011listening to the young lad talking about how he pretended to be dead to save himself and felt bodies falling on him left me thinking about the Nazi’s shooting people into the open graves. Sickening. I feel really angry about it right now. My husband was confused when I said ‘I am pleased he is still alive and didn’t shoot himself’. I want him to feel the guilt, but it seems like he isn’t and probably won’t.