The children are tired
The parents are tired
Is everyone tired?
Sam’s weekly zoom meetings teaching English to young teens in our sister region of Israel (Hadera-eiron) is a lot of fun.
Part of the fun is the unpredictableness of it all. Where will the conversation go on any given day?Part of the fun is the students’ marginal grasp of conversational English. You never know how they’re perceiving a question and how they’ll answer.
Then there are the days his kids seem exhausted. Just plain tired. And they tell him so.
I look back at our years as young parents and I remember. Dimly some days and on others, with red hot vividness. Maybe it’s the norm for students, especially preteens, everywhere and in most circumstances to say “I feel tired.” It’s a great fallback when you don’t necessarily want to engage. It’s also reality.
Sam gets on the call at 9AM Sunday. It’s the end of the first day of school of their week. They’re hungry. They’ve had a long day of interactions. Probably they’ve been called away from a fun afternoon with their peers.
The kids have all kinds of growing pains. Like kids anywhere they don’t share most of what’s bothering them. They still need to buy birthday presents for friends. They have to study for their Arabic language test, they have science tests, there’s a battery of tests they have to take in March. They need to play with the idea of running away from home. They still need to unload the dishwasher.
There are also other realities. Most their families have sent one or more reservists into active duty. Many moms are on their own, though this isn’t the case with these particular kids. Some in this group, though again, not Sam’s kids, are still in temporary homes because they can’t go back to their communities for any number of war-related reasons. (Did you know there are hundreds of thousands of Israelis still unable to return home?)
Kids need space to be kids and to have fun. They have had to grow up since Oct 7th like we all have, but they are still kids.
Art by Itzikahunna
Sometimes I try to imagine how the world feels from their perspective. I met so many children during my travels in January so I have a feel for what they’re experiencing.
Children who were displaced by the terrorists.
Children who feel how their families are affected by the war.
Children who want to feel safe in this world.
We know that children are sponges. There’s only so much we can protect them from.
The media treats with reverence the plight of the Gazan children who are suffering. These children as well as their Israeli counterparts continue to suffer because of the calculated strategy of Hamas and Iran. The Gazan children are used as human shields everyday.
The challenges of Israeli children is not explored by most media. It seems as that the editorial norm is cancel out the value of some children over others.
OH NO!!!!
BACK TO THE CRAZY LOPSIDED MATH OF THIS WAR!!!
Hostage for hostage
Child for child
When will the world wake up and demand an end to the crimes of Hamas? When will we wake up to understand these children are being used as statistics to sway world opinion?
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