Bin Laden and My Babies

I’m the first to admit that I know very little. It seems the older I grow, the less I know. This is the paradox of aging and maturity. I knew everything at the ripe old age of 13. I will be 36 in a week and how very funny that I know 1 kabillionth of what I knew then.

I’m thinking the world was a lot less complicated for me at 13. The towers were up. I had no clue who or what a Bin Laden was. I could get lost with my friends on bikes for hours until my mother’s voice beckoned for me over our little bike bells and through the evening lampposts. We lived on the border of Bloomfield and Newark–and I remember feeling (perhaps being told) that our neighborhood was rougher than the rest. Looking back, it really wasn’t. Whether that was the neighborhood or my ignorance, I am not sure.

Twenty something years later I find myself fumbling through forests of parenting. How funny I write about parental guidance when I admittedly know nothing. On top of that, our world is so intensely complicated. Sad. Terrifying. How do I parent through these tough times and not let the sad and terrifying overshadow the beauty? Even the most crafty and knowledgable of parents are bound to trip up.

The last few days have run havoc over my heart. The death of Osama bin Laden didn’t send me running into the streets with my dancing shoes on. I didn’t paint my face red, white, and blue; even if I tried to fake it, the tears would no doubt smear those colors and make them something more of a purple-violet. I just didn’t feel like rejoicing.

My children are so small: just six little years and 19 months; too young to possibly begin to fathom the sadness and the scope of 9/11. Quite honestly, I don’t ever want them to go to the places we, as a country and individually, had to go in order to truly GET IT. I know that if my faith played no role in how I felt about Bin Laden’s death, it would still be in me–I cannot celebrate the death of any man. I feel so unclosed by this. I still feel…a loss.

There was some Facebook fighting over this topic on my wall; people declaring their right to celebrate. I do not judge that or doubt their need or right to go there. But for me, I don’t feel it. And there is no way in hell I am sharing any part of this with my children right now. As the back and forths were happening someone posted an article by Peter Gadiel on my wall entitled Victim’s Dad: Why I’m Not Celebrating Bin Laden’s Death.

Gadiel lost his 23 year-old son in the 9/11 attacks and is the president of 9/11 Families for a Secure America. It is both powerful and sad and my sentiments exactly. My condolences are ever-flowing to everyone affected by the tragedy. To the people that perished, to their loved ones left suffering, to our President who had to order a man killed, to the war vets…the ripples keep going. And to our children, who will inherit all of this eventually.

So for now, I am shielding them from it. Are you exposing your children to the events that are unfolding? How much is too much when it comes to exposing our children to the harsh realities of the world we live in?

Click here to read more by Jamie Tripp Utitus on life and living with Multiple Sclerosis.