When I woke up yesterday, nothing seemed particularly different. I followed my normal routine of hitting the snooze button approximately seven times until I could no longer deny the day.
Then, as I do every morning, I rolled over in the dark, grabbed my phone and almost blinded myself by reading the screen with unacclimatised retinas.
I could hear the boys stirring downstairs, arguing about something trivial, eventually settling on a TV channel they were both happy with. Also, knowing that the teenager wouldn’t rise until I forcefully made her, I figured I better get moving myself.
I quickly checked my Twitter stream and saw the words ‘Malaysian airline’ and ‘crash’ and I was instantly excited. Had they found the missing plane? It didn’t take me long to realise that no, no they hadn’t. In fact, as I was to quickly find out, it was much, much worse than that.
I bolted out of bed, ran downstairs and snatched the remote control out of my son’s sweaty little hand, flicked over from Adventure Time to the 24 hour news and watched as the world showed us itself at its utter worst.
To be honest, I wasn’t thinking too much about them, the two very impressionable little boys on the couch, slack jawed and wide eyed beside me. I was so rapt up in this catastrophic event, so keen to morbidly see it play out in front of me in real time, that I had given very little regard to what, if any, damage this would do to them.
Top Comments
Growing up as a child throughout the 80's there were unfortunately many of these such tragedies on the news.
There was political unrest in the Middle East, Africa and of course the Cold War in the background. Airline security around this time still consisted of passengers visiting the cockpit during flights and unscanned baggage often allowed onto planes.
I witnessed many news reports of hostages, airline bombings, airport shootings
and the 1983 shooting down of a Korean Airlines jet by - ahem - a Russian
fighter jet. That one was particularly close because my dad worked at Kodak
with Neil Grenfell, who perished along with his wife and two young kids in the
disaster. I was five and I knew the kids.
My dad flew regularly for work and although as a large family we didn't go on
flying holidays, I nonetheless developed my own fascination of aircraft. Always
going to the airport to see dad off or greet his return, I would love watching
these big machines of the sky assembled in one place.
I have now undertaken my own flying training and have a pilot licence. I fly as
much as I can both as a passenger and as pilot. The moral of this story: don't
try to protect your kids from disaster. They can deal with it.
What they won't be able to deal with is The Whole Entire World, once they grow
up and fly free from the over-protecting clutches of a sheltered childhood.
To a child, disaster is but one of the wonders of the world.
I read this article a few days ago and I am still bothered by it. I think that this is an example of someone not putting the needs of their children first. I think letting your children watch this is selfish and was about putting your voyeristic needs first and then making up an excuse that you thought validated this selfishness. Given the ages of your children, it was unnecessary for them to be exposed to this. Watch or read about it in your own time. And don't pretend you were doing it for their own good.