Kevin C | 21 Jun 2018 6:49 a.m. PST |
A couple of days ago my daughter brought her latest drawing to show my wife and I and to our horror it contained a surprise. As always, her drawing contained the usual rainbows, unicorns and ponies. However, this time the ponies and unicorns were wearing swastikas. When we questioned her about these latest "decorations" she explained that she saw them on one of the cartoons that she watched. We have a DVD of the old Looney Tunes made during WWII and in a few of the episodes the villains are wearing swastikas. Needless to say, we used this as a learning opportunity for our daughter as to why she should not decorate her unicorns and ponies with swastikas. In the end, the day turned out very well and we were able to introduce our daughter to the topic of World War II. That night, we let my daughter call my mother, who grew up during the war, and she had a long conversation about what it was like growing up during the war years. |
Choctaw | 21 Jun 2018 7:10 a.m. PST |
That is a very cool learning experience and a nice example of good parenting. |
Joes Shop | 21 Jun 2018 7:12 a.m. PST |
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nnascati | 21 Jun 2018 7:30 a.m. PST |
A great way to handle a touchy subject. |
15th Hussar | 21 Jun 2018 8:01 a.m. PST |
Bravo! A very nice tale indeed after reading so many "veiled" posts here in the recent past! |
Andrew Walters | 21 Jun 2018 8:21 a.m. PST |
Neat story. Parenting is fun. |
Aethelflaeda was framed | 21 Jun 2018 8:32 a.m. PST |
I hope you explained that the swastika has historical usage by other cultures that predate the Nazi usage and that the usage is not always about Nazism. Native Americans, Hindus, Trojans, and Celts all used them. Sometimes symbols need to be taken back from those who soiled them and rehabilitated, the swastika might well be a hard one to do so, but none the less, an educated mind can probably discern when the usage is from evil intent or something else. |
nnascati | 21 Jun 2018 11:19 a.m. PST |
Aetheflaeda, While that is a good point, I doubt the average, non-history buff could absorb all that, let alone a child. |
Aethelflaeda was framed | 21 Jun 2018 11:59 a.m. PST |
Just visit a Buddhist shrine sometime. You will find plenty of reasons to not paint the symbol as black and white in meaning. As I said rehabilitating the symbol might be hard, but that doesn't mean that the attempt should not be made. Education is key. If she can understand the struggle against the Fascists, she can probably understand the concept of a distorted symbol. Just show her a photo of an American Indian in a swastika festooned bonnet and she will intuitively understand. She only has been given half the story otherwise. I was introduced to the history of WW2 at the age of five from games, the Holocaust at 6 when I started reading books in my fathers library. I also noted the Swastika in American Indian costume about the same time. As I brought the very question up to my father about the two different uses of the symbol. I was glad to have a copy of the Encyclopedia Brittanica in the house to explore,, this may well have been the germ of my own later interests in symbolism and decorative arts that became a career path. It was not just the Holocaust that the Nazis were guilty of, it was the usurpation and denigration of their own native culture. |
Kevin C | 21 Jun 2018 1:58 p.m. PST |
Aethelflaeda was framed, Given that Oklahoma's famed 45th Division used a swastika on its own arm patch prior to 1938, and given that I live only an hour away from the 45th Division museum, it will be fairly easy to explain to my daughter (as well as my son) that the swastika had a variety of meanings prior to the Nazis screwing up the imagery for everyone else. |
Aethelflaeda was framed | 21 Jun 2018 5:37 p.m. PST |
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nnascati | 21 Jun 2018 6:51 p.m. PST |
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Aethelflaeda was framed | 21 Jun 2018 8:36 p.m. PST |
Did you expect otherwise? |