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© St. Petersburg Times, published February 10, 2003
My daughter recently cracked the code.
You know the code I'm talking about. The one we use to discuss sensitive subjects in the presence of our children. The code requiring that we S-P-E-L-L certain words and use $2 synonyms for others.
Recently, my wife, Tammy, relayed to me this coded message: "Our rodent has expired. Can you take care of the remains?" My translation: "Goldie the hamster has keeled over dead. Can you remove his stiff little corpse from his cage before our daughters are forever traumatized?"
It worked beautifully. Goldie had a nice funeral the next day, after we were able to break the news to the girls in a less startling fashion.
But the code failed us recently when we were discussing the very serious matter of the impending W-A-R with Iraq. Our eldest, who turns 6 next month, is just beginning to read, but somehow she knows that W-A-R means war.
What do say when your little girl, still in kindergarten, asks you if there's going to be a war in our country? If you count 9/11, the ongoing terror alerts and the likelihood that more calamity is to come, you might truthfully answer that there already is a war here.
But that answer wouldn't do. Not just because it overstates things a bit, but because I'd also like for her and her little sister to sleep in their own beds for the next two months.
Despite her phonics abilities, I'm certain my daughter has only the foggiest notion of what war is about. And I'd prefer it to stay that way a while longer. There will be time enough later to learn about life's darker realities.
So I offered my daughter the assurance that if there is a war, it would be someplace else far away. And, unlike some families who are directly involved, I was able to assure her that her daddy, who is not a soldier, wouldn't have to go.
That seemed to satisfy her. But I know more questions are coming.
When the shooting starts -- and that seems almost inevitable now -- preserving the little cocoon around our home will be harder than ever.
If I'm watching a ballgame and the TV newscasters break in with a promo for the evening news, my little 5-year-old sponge will consume every word and every image until I change the channel. If her friends' parents are talking about the war, she will hear about it. And if her mother and I forget ourselves, she will latch on to every word that slips from our lips.
It's like living with a 3-foot-tall CIA agent in the house. Exactly how we are to answer the questions ahead is a matter I'm still trying to resolve.
If she would ask me to explain the war that followed the Sept. 11 attacks -- which she knows only as "the day those buildings caught on fire" -- I could easily explain. Some bad men did an awful thing and a lot of nice people got hurt. Our soldiers are trying to stop the bad guys from doing it again.
But I'm still trying to figure out for myself what this thing with Iraq is really about.
I guess I could say there's a really mean guy in a faraway country. And he may be helping the bad guys that caused the buildings to catch on fire. Our president -- and she knows who he is -- thinks this bad guy is going to hurt us. So we are going to pound him first.
This may make perfect sense in the White House. But I can see this explanation producing a blank stare on my daughter's face -- the same look I saw last March when I tried to explain how much longer she had to wait until Christmas.
Yes, the answer is complicated. But it also seems to conflict with the rules of our house. Those being that defending yourself is fine, but throwing the first punch is a big-time no-no.
Perhaps it is unfair to boil international politics down to the simple language of a child. But shouldn't we be able to look our children in the eye and justify our actions to them?
President Bush seems convinced that striking the first blow is the best way to defend our nation. Right now, I'm not sure whether I agree with him. All I know is that someday my little girl is going to ask what this war is about. By then, hopefully, I can explain it to her. By then, hopefully, I can explain it to myself.
-- Robert King covers Spring Hill and can be reached at 848-1432. Send e-mail to rking@sptimes.com .