Bad Guy and the Good ‘Ol Boys Who Love to Hate Them
By Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser
In Memory of Molly Ivins

These days, I’m living in a world filled with bad guys and good guys,
destroyers and protectors. Remy, my four-year-old, is “into” weapons
and while eager to be a good guy, he’s pretty intrigued by the dark
side, at least as he understands it. So, fingers are guns, two pieces
of wood taped together a sword, and a plastic dragon can breathe fire.

Remy’s growing up in wartime, removed as it is from our relatively
peaceful household. The newspaper and the computer screen sometimes
reveal images of war’s ruination. Remy knows who George W. Bush and
Dick Cheney are and he has heard us say that they want this war and he
believes them to be bad men. Last year, he told me, “Dick Cheney did
something mean to his friend, but I don’t know what it is.” Now, herein
lies the rub: the reality—tempting as it is to lay all blame personally
upon Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney—isn’t so simple.

I don’t want my children thinking that by not voting for those elected
(perhaps in Bush’s case, that’s not entirely clear) and even feeling
animosity toward your leaders absolves you of all responsibility.
Democracy should be a more strenuous construction than simply casting a
vote. How do I help them become involved? How can I encourage their
becoming peacemakers? And how do I allow them to work out their own
feelings about violence for themselves during a time of great violence?

Although I yearn to take away his jerry-rigged sword and wrap my
fingers around my son’s sticky, trigger-happy ones, I have decided—for
the moment—not to declare all experimentation with bad guys off-limits.
Growing up, we didn’t always treat our dolls all that kindly.
Aggression is a human impulse; if it weren’t a natural occurrence, the
world would have evolved beyond all battles. One thing my son needs
from me is acceptance. At the same time, the fact that I don’t find
dueling a favored pastime allows me to offer other tools for working
out disagreements. For children, a critical part of understanding war
and peace is through the construct of conflict and resolution.
Wonderful picture books—such as Michael Rosen’s “This is Our House” or
Lisa Jahn Claugh’s “My Friend and I”—address these subjects, which
allow us the chance to ponder these issues together.

And then there’s practice working out our own differences. A couple of
months ago, Remy was resistant to playing with his friend, T after
Remy’s friend, Benj, likely somewhat jealous of Remy’s friendship with
T, said he didn’t like T. Remy thought he shouldn’t like T. “You can
like T,” I told Remy, “No matter what Benj thinks.” The next time Remy
and T played, we took out the clay so they could start off with a set
activity and then they went with a babysitter to check out a nearby
construction site. I told Remy that when his big brother had a similar
period of unease with his friend Alex when they were four, the two
eventually discovered a shared love of puzzles, and created pop-up
books together each time they played, and all was well again. Remy and
T begin their playdate each week with some hide and seek nowadays. We
experience working things out, and then we begin to trust the process
and trust each other. Laying the foundation is that simple.

Obviously, the world’s warring factions are dealing with far more
complex situations than deciding which game to play. Being part of the
solution begins, though, with a willingness to assert one’s beliefs
while remaining open to others’ ideas. I keep thinking back to 2003 and
how it seemed that to question invasion in Iraq was patently
unthinkable (not in my progressive college town but everywhere else),
unpatriotic. I sent a letter to congresswoman Barbara Lee thanking her
for standing up against the war (“Today, you are my representative,” I
wrote). At first, each public voice dissenting from the
administration’s plan barely registered. Slowly, the voices grew
audible: Cindy Sheehan’s and Jack Murtha’s for example.

As the Senate debates whether to put forth a formal vote renouncing the
President’s plan for a surge of 21,000 additional troops to Iraq, I’m
hoping those opposing the surge prevail. If dissenting voices are loud
and the vote remarkable, we can all see—my children included—that when
disagreement occurs alongside dialogue, the road toward democratic
change making is navigable. Silence or simple conciliation thwarts such
change and promotes a sense of futility, the kind that allows leaders
to be personally demonized and peace to remain entirely beyond reach.
While we can’t be assured leaders will listen, we can teach our kids to
use their words. And we can model this for them by using ours.