National Crisis

From the pages of my diary Jan. 14, 1981 (age 13):

I just learned on the news that the U.S. hostages may be
released by Tuesday. I guess I better explain. Iran has had American hostages since Nov. '79. I don't know why. They just held 'em hostage.

You wonder sometimes if kids understand the relevance of major news events when the earthquake in Haiti and Jay Leno's future with NBC both seem billed as a national "crisis." I am sure I am not the only parent who hopes their child is brushing up on "current events" in class every day. But that shouldn't be their only news outlet.

Every morning when Carter calls me at work, I hear a run down of just about every sports score imaginable from the previous night. So I know for a fact, he's tuned into ESPN News while eating his Cocoa Puffs.

But I know we, as a family, don't sit down and watch the 6 o'clock news together every night. Do people still do that? Hubby and I pretty much get our news from various Web sites and some from the radio on our commute.

That's why tonight when I was talking about a chili cook-off fundraiser for Haiti that we're doing at work, I had to ask Carter if he'd even heard about the earthquake. I was relieved he had. And I thank all educators out there for keeping our children in the loop while adding some "current" value to their lessons.

Because after reading the second half of my diary entry from 19 years ago, I can see kids Carter's age may think about an international tragedy, but they're usually dealing with a crisis or two of their own....

Today we had a Pep Fest in school. It wasn't that interesting tho'. Lots of people liked my new glasses. They said they looked good on me but some boys thought they looked dumb because of the fancy bows. Good night.

Whew. Glad I survived that one!