As the clock ticks down on this century, the wild rumors fly. A nasty little bug called y2k will make all the computer and electronic systems do flipflops. Stores will run out of toilet paper, planes will fall out of the sky and terrorists will take advantage of the big crowds of hysterical people to blow up all our favorite buildings and new years party places.
Its not just the grownups spewing such doomsaying, the schoolyard is rampant with smaller yet even more outrageous echoes of these rumors. My eldest daughter has expressed worry to me over hearing classmates expound on the end of the world that is their opinions is due to strike at 12:01 January 1st 2000.
One of the most difficult things to do as a parent is to convince their children that their classmates are not a reliable source for fact. It took a long meandering discussion to make my eight year old feel secure in the state of the universe again. I don't blame her classmates, they're all young and impressionable and believe most of what they overhear. The problem being that they usually only overhear snippets of adult conversation and comprehend it through the simplifying filter of their child's minds.
Even my own daughter who is usually very good at grasping concepts had to be briefed in depth to the fact that people have been working to fix this possible problem for several years. It took a little more explaining to assure her that militia-ists and international terrorists were not going to be skipping down the street throwing around blocks of C4 like clowns throwing around candy in a parade.
As adults we talk, make small just in case the power goes out preparations much akin to looking forward to the usual New England winter storm with the exception of adding receipts into that drawer in the pantry. As adults we make jokes and talk imaginatively to each other with fond memories of Mad Max movies, we all can remember as teens thinking it would be so kewl to live in a post apocalyptic world and not have to go to school. Yet this sort of talk overheard by the kids is more than enough to give them mini-ulcers.
The thing that I have discovered over the years is that when kids are worried about something, they don't talk to you, they just worry. I had to notice that my daughter seemed unusually subdued and through increased attention, caught a few tell tale comments while the afternoon news droned on in the background. It was then that I asked her what she thought about seeing the end of a century and found out what the kids on the playground were filling her head with. After that, it was a nice question and answer session to explain that she shouldn't be worried or scared because the world was NOT ending.
And now I'm going to go off on those parents who seem to thrive on filling their children's heads and hearts with worry and fear with horrific cataclysmic images. This is not a movie script you are writing, you know who you are, nor is it a movie you are living in. You should be easing your child's fears and worries, not feeding them. Regardless of whether you believe or not, that is no reason to subject your children and via the playground grapevine, the children of others, to nightmares and angst over your theory of the end of the world. A huge part of a parents responsibility is to strive to gift your children with as much peace and security as possible in a world that (at least through the lens of the six o'clock news) sees far too little of it. Every child everywhere deserves to sleep to happy dreams in the surest sense of security no matter how false you believe that security to be. Innocence is far too rare and precious for it to be intentionally undermined by paranoid rumors and doomsday fears much less anything else.
That said, I hope you all do more to ease the fears and less to perpetuate the rumors. A child's imagination runs wild and rough far to easily for we as adults to steer it down the frightening paths that tread far too close to realism for them to deal with. Down with y2k doomsday rumors, long live the brothers Grimm, mother goose and Harry Potter, fairy tales and scary stories that let kids be scared without thinking its oh too real to deal.
Happy New Year! 2000 give me your best shot, we are not afraid.