Basic HTML Version
What ChildrenThink
About
NUC
by
Michael A. Snyder
It's time we faced the issue most parents avoid!
''N
UCLEAR WAR?
We don't talk
about it in our family.
r
don't
want my children to think
about it- they have enough
problems growing up as it is."
Maybe you, too, have heard your
ncighbor say similar words. Maybe you
yourself have said them.
We cannot hide the reality from our chil–
dren, try as sorne may. Most parents would
be shocked to learn how well-acquainted
their children already are with the horrors of
nuclear warfare.
Would you have expected the following
teenage
view of a pos si ble nuclear
exchange?
" 1 believe 1 was in high school when 1 first
became aware," wrote one American high
school student. "Of course, 1 found it terrify–
ing, as every human being, in that our whole
world, my whole world, could be destroyed
by one bomb that our nation had discovered.
A bomb that every advanced civilization
sought to obtain.
"To destroy our whole race, to destroy
people, culture, life and earth is essentially
the outcome of the A-bomb."
This remarkable comment, from a special
task force study performed under the aus–
pices of the Amer ican Psychiatric Associa–
tion (APA), is typical.
In the same survey, another teenager was
asked if he thought he would survive a
nuclear attack. H is response? " I think about
that often. 1 really don't think they [the citi–
zens of the United States] could survive
one.... My city would be demolished and
the country in big trouble. We really don't
know. It hasn't happened yet. Let's hope and
pray that it doesn't."
Children and teenagers understand- and
are often more honest than adults in facing
up to the future.
September 1983
One Pa rent 's So lution
Thomas Powers is a respected essayist and
journalist. He has covered the continuing
development of international nuclear policy.
He is also a parent. On one occasion, he was
startled by his own little daughter's detailed
response after asking her what she thought
nuclear war would be like. Her answer?
"lt
[nuclear war] would probably be very smoky,
and not many people, and lots of things
ruined, and dark."
Mr. Powers now admits: "When other
people bring up this subject [of nuclear war]
when my kids are around ... { grow acu tely
uneasy. Dqn't they realize that there are sorne
things you just don't tell kids?"
(Thinking
About the Next War,
page 63).
Mr. Powers asserts, "1 don't want to tell my
children what nuclear war would do to them.
r
don't want them dreaming about it. 1 don't
want them burdened with terrifying images
that never fade."
His solution? "They need to grow up first,
and get sorne practice in ignoring things they
can't do anything about. They need to learn to
hear without hearing,
as adults do" (ibid.,
page 61, emphasis added).
Yet "hearing without hearing" is the chief
problem most adults labor under, especially
with respect to tbe future! While Mr. Powers
is expressing bis own personal view for his
children's mental well-being, he does point
up the major obstacle to adult understanding
of the problems facing humanity!
Toda y 's Emotlonal Denial
The time to ignore the awesome problems of
nuclear war is
past.
Not telling chi ldren--or
ourselves--of the horrors of man's scientific
ingenuity will only prevent the discovery of
the one and only real solution to nuclear
catastrophe.
Robert Jay Lifton, a professor of psychia–
try at Yale University, coined the phrase
"lt scares me
because you
don't know-it
could happen at
any time."
Jason, age
7
S