The Age of Innocence

I heard about the death of Osama Bin Laden early one Sunday morning as I put 24-hour news on the TV whilst playing on the floor with my baby son. It caught me off balance; I have a professional, but very peripheral, interest in such matters. I listened to the newsreaders and journalists speculate with increasing abandon about the likely impacts or repercussions. It was likely there would be none; Bin Laden had not been a meaningful AQ figure for some time, this was a victory of US domestic policy. Possibly there would be some concern about the manner of Bin Laden's death, execution or assassination depending upon whether you considered him a religious martyr or a terrorist, but in reality, even the most antagonistic of liberal journos would see that BL's incarceration and extended trial would serve no purpose towards justice and would only further the cause of extremism: He was much better off dead.

The irony and hypocrisy of my own perspective was not lost on me as I played with an utterly innocent child. I read books and tell tales to my three little men in which the heroes are fair, the baddies are unquestionably wrong and there is always a clearly defined and happy ending. Could we ever deliver that to our children? Seemingly every generation has said that whilst prosecuting conflict somewhere else. At what age will my sons ascend to this knowledge, possibly take part in it?

Recently, as I was flushing a dead tropical fish away, my 5YO followed with interest.
"How does a fishy get to fishy heaven through the toilet, Daddy?" His question seemed to be an innocent request for information, rather than a mischievous challenge to my attempts to offer a balanced perspective on life and death. "Does it swim there?"
"No, it's dead, it can't swim. Its soul goes to heaven." Did I really say that? Does a fish have a soul? To have a soul, a being surely must have consciousness; does a fish? I remember as a child never being satisfied by these facile ideas but I was now immediately confused by the innocent logic of a 5YO. In fact he is not five yet. At what age will I have to come clean on this issue?

Sex education seems to start even earlier in life.
"Apparently your thingy gets hard and you stick it in a girl's fadge. I can't wait!" Declared an older boy in my wife's network of friends. That's the basic, innocent truth of it, I suppose, but what of the tortured wrangling that is necessary to get a girl to agree to this simple act. Sex education never seems to address the need for dinner dates, chat up lines and Brad Pitt looks. It seems to be offered as a right but at what age should we address these fundamentals? It's a bit like driving a car: The basic operating principles are simple enough but negotiating the road, other road users and weather conditions can make it a difficult experience. And the more beautiful and expensive the car, the more difficult it seems to be to drive it.