We were walking down the high street yesterday when we passed a group of Free Palestine protestors. My daughter naturally asked what they were doing.
Perhaps foolishly this lead me to try and boil down the Palestine/Israel history into something that wouldn’t make my 8yo switch off within 30 seconds.
Shortly after sidestepping the Balfour declaration, I started to consider how great it is to have kids around to force you to confront your own beliefs and – quite often – ignorance.
When children ask questions about things we blithely take for granted – why is the sea blue, for example – it’s tough to admit you don’t know the answer.
Children aren’t scared of asking ‘why?’, a truly powerful question that, as we grow older, we tend to suppress using.
And it’s this lack of fear we should try to embrace to make sure we don’t accept the status quo, look for information and come up with our own answers.
