What is the right age to teach your kids why you really hate Nazis?

PJ Diaz

Well-Known Member
Cool. I just don't know her so her opinion would not mean a lot. No offense is intended.
Her opinion would be based mainly on her education. I'm not offended, just thought that you might want a professional perspective. I pretty much already know what she would say anyway, "let kids be kids as long as possible, you can't give them back their childhood later".
 

Unclebaldrick

Well-Known Member
Honestly it sounds like you are raising your child in the wrong community in terms of compatibility with your values. Move out here to Santa Cruz, and you won't have that problem. You will have different problems, like insane housing costs, hut hey everything's a trade off.
They're there. They are just still hiding. They're everywhere - just in varying degrees.

But you are right. Moving here gave her a relationship with her grandparents. We shall be leaving before long.
 
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Unclebaldrick

Well-Known Member
Her opinion would be based mainly on her education. I'm not offended, just thought that you might want a professional perspective. I pretty much already know what she would say anyway, "let kids be kids as long as possible, you can't give them back their childhood later".
I agree with her.

As long as possible.
 

Unclebaldrick

Well-Known Member
It absolutely is.

Bud....don't treat me like some team trump guy saying the opposite just for the sake of it. We all know enough about each other that we're past that. I taught preschool for a few years and have read a book or two and taken a class or two and have been around actual professionals. I'm no expert, but I know enough to know that six is too young for a holocaust museum. There is a way you could teach her about it yourself, that first layer, six is old enough to learn about the first layer. You use words like "hurt" and "mean" and you probably wouldn't use anything visual. The museum is too much. Going in circles here and I don't want to, so I've said my bit and have done my duty as a person that cares about the development of kids.
I do not think I have treated you this way. I certainly did not intend to. If I have disrespected you, it was not intentional.
 

hanimmal

Well-Known Member
I guess one thing I think about is this: holocaust survivors regularly staff the Holocaust Museum. I grew up next to Skokie Illinois. I have met dozens, maybe hundreds of survivors. The impact of getting change from a shopkeeper or meeting a friend's grandmother and noticing the concentration camp tattoo always hit me like a brick and fixed the event as very, very close in time. Not sure it would have that effect on her though.
That is something that I would not have considered and can see how powerful that would be, and how fewer and fewer opportunities that there would be to experience that.

I was thinking more of a museum of survivors of the nazis, not one honoring one.

Sorry, I could not resist. Mentioning that Henry Ford was a Nazi is a knee jerk reaction to me any time his name comes up.
You are right, it is not my fault that was the one museum that was in driving range that our schools would have a field trip cheap enough that I would be able to go to every year.

They're there. They are just still hiding. They're everywhere - just in varying degrees.
This makes me think about all the nonsense about wearing a mask being just like the holocaust comparisons being made by the anti-vaccine crowd right now. Not that she would need to know about the horrors of it to be safe, but the hypocrisy of anyone making those statements would become very obvious.

I agree with her.

As long as possible.
Bingo. I know I would have been able to handle it, and gotten a lot from it at 6. Not everyone is able to stay in their nice little bubble and stay blissfully unaware of the dangers in our society from the people that would prey on them.
 

PJ Diaz

Well-Known Member
They're there. They are just still hiding. They're everywhere - just in varying degrees.
It's true, they are everywhere unfortunately.

This happened around here a few weeks ago:

Outside of that however there is a lot of openness in the LGBTQ community. Heck my mom took me to some of the first gay pride parades in Santa Cruz and San Francisco way back in the late 70's, and they are still going strong today.
 

Unclebaldrick

Well-Known Member
It's true, they are everywhere unfortunately.

This happened around here a few weeks ago:

Outside of that however there is a lot of openness in the LGBTQ community. Heck my mom took me to some of the first gay pride parades in Santa Cruz and San Francisco way back in the late 70's, and they are still going strong today.
I would not take her to a gay pride parade. Been to quite a few. Seen some really, really adult stuff. :o That was back in the day, before corporate sponsors.
 

PJ Diaz

Well-Known Member
I would not take her to a gay pride parade. Been to quite a few. Seen some really, really adult stuff. :o
Yeah, they have certainly progressed over the years. The early ones in Santa Cruz were much more mild. I agree that the ones in San Francisco can be out of control, and not appropriate for young kids.
 

Unclebaldrick

Well-Known Member
I guess at this point, the actual content of the Holocaust Museum becomes relevant. I do not expect it to be a cataloging of horrors. I really expect it to be much more thoughtful than that. I'm not looking to teach her hate. I am looking to teach her that no matter what evil people do - she can prevail.

Time to do some research on that.

I have already made a thread about my kid being transgender. I did not expect this to go that way and it wasn't until I started it that I realized how intertwined it was with my even considering taking her there. Its just part of my process now in trying to be the best parent that I can and arming her for her future - kinda like Linda Hamilton in Terminator II.

 

CatHedral

Well-Known Member
Hello from Germany (we hate Nazis, too),

I've just asked my mother (retired primary school teacher, primary school is for ages 6-10 here); she does not recall teaching her school kids about the Holocaust, definitely not before 4th grade (age 9-10) and definitely not in detail.

She mentioned my brother was shown "Schindler's List" in 6th grade and she found that quite egregious.

You have to know that we are taught A LOT about the Holocaust in schools in Germany. It's almost too much, because you become a little jaded.

In my opinion your kid is way too young to be confronted with such horrors. Same about 9/11, probably too early.

I very much appreciate you being that thoughtful about teaching your kids politically and historically.

The best you can do for your kids is make them think critically, question the authorities, question themselves, be free thinkers.
In the mid 70s I knew someone who went to a German school here. Teachers rotated through from the Federal Republic. He told me that grades 10 through 13 history class contained much hand wringing analysis of how it came to be.
Looking at this country’s ongoing experience tells me we came very close here. We were saved (but are not out of the woods!) by the fact that our aspiring Führer was not nearly as intelligent and charismatic as the original.

We are very vulnerable to autocracy at this time and got very lucky that our clown could not quite pull off a “Reichstag fire” moment.
 

CatHedral

Well-Known Member
And in my defense, I think a lot of people underestimate the capabilities and intelligence of a nearly seven year old. I am surprised by her daily.
I think that she will treasure the memory of being taken as seriously as an adult, and that will imo eclipse the awfulness of the topic.
 

Unclebaldrick

Well-Known Member
In the mid 70s I knew someone who went to a German school here. Teachers rotated through from the Federal Republic. He told me that grades 10 through 13 history class contained much hand wringing analysis of how it came to be.
Looking at this country’s ongoing experience tells me we came very close here. We were saved (but are not out of the woods!) by the fact that our aspiring Führer was not nearly as intelligent and charismatic as the original.

We are very vulnerable to autocracy at this time and got very lucky that our clown could not quite pull off a “Reichstag fire” moment.
There is a vast difference between teaching a German child of that Era and an American child about the Holocaust. We all share guilt for allowing atrocities to occur - yet I feel that burden would likely be much greater for a German child and understand how introducing them to the full horror of it at this age might be unwarranted.

This isn't about guilt. To me, it is about her understanding the immorality of those she will encounter that hate her for who she is.
 

CatHedral

Well-Known Member
I mean I'm also vigilantly anti-Nazi, but f the Enola Gay was supposed to be a safe, uplifting moment for your child then I'm not really sure what to say. Maybe show her the bombs and then if she asks why we would do that to civilians, then bring her to the Holocaust Museum? I dunno.
We did worse to civilians with conventional incendiaries. Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo.
 

CatHedral

Well-Known Member
There is a vast difference between teaching a German child of that Era and an American child about the Holocaust. We all share guilt for allowing atrocities to occur - yet I feel that burden would likely be much greater for a German child and understand how introducing them to the full horror of it at this age might be unwarranted.

This isn't about guilt. To me, it is about her understanding the immorality of those she will encounter that hate her for who she is.
I was both. Born here but first-generation German. Veritas vos liberabit. I support reading her in.
 

CatHedral

Well-Known Member
I will echo what I said earlier: one should teach their kids to think critically, to question EVERYTHING, and not spoon-feed them ideology of any sort.

There is a firm ground to be built here, and it will make the person resilient against falling prey to consumerism, against being mind-controlled by internet media, against hating and putting people into categories based on superficial qualities.

Going from "look here, the Holocaust" to "this is why we must hate Nazis" is a cop-out. The issue is more complex. Why would anybody commit such a crime in the first place? Is it in the Germans' genes? Could it happen again? Where? Why?

What's the thing that drives Nazis to be such haters? What's the nature of the hating?
Excellent questions.
 
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