When a 12 year old asks "What's Agenda 21?"

posted by Sleeping Giant | January 11, 2010

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One of my kids asked me this very question about a week ago. I first asked him where he heard about Agenda 21, and then asked what he knew about it. He heard about it from a friend's mom, and what he knew was accurate enough.

I was able to change the subject by encouraging him to look more into it for himself if he was interested (which I knew wouldn't happen - hello? 12 year old boy CHOOSING to do research?) and quickly changed the subject. But the question remains....at what point do you stop hiding the truth from them? We constantly remind them about aspartame and fluoride, the garbage they put into fast food and such - but there are some truths that are too scary for full grown adults, let alone children who still have the occasional nightmare about fictitious monsters. In avoiding the subject, am I no better than those who would seek to hide the truth from me? And would my excuses sound the same as theirs?

There's a desire to protect your children, maintain their innocence for as long as possible by keeping the magic of Santa Claus and the tooth fairy alive for as long as possible. But when they've outgrown those myths and start asking legitimate questions, the kind of questions you wished more ADULTS were asking, when is it time to finally answer them? The term "age appropriate" certainly comes to mind when discussing topics like these with children, but the answers to questions like these can't really be sugar coated. There's no nice way to explain eugenics and population reduction. There's no nice way to explain 9/11. At what point does "maintaining the innocence of" become a voluntary continuation of deceit?

When my oldest asks about 2012 because she's scared (fucking movie trailer), obviously my focus is on the unknown new beginning part of it and NOT the poles shifting part. I want to arm them with knowledge, but only giving them half of the story feels dishonest in it's omission of the possible physical changes that could be on the horizon. I console myself in this dilemma by reminding myself that I don't KNOW what's going to happen, so it would be irresponsible to announce what I think will happen either way - because I DON'T KNOW.

How DO you tell a child that poison is regularly put into products intended for mass consumption? Or that there's poison in our water? That the people in control, the "elite" think there's too many of us on the planet....and that they're trying to remedy that? If ever a SHTF (shit hits the fan) scenario ever did take place, everything explained all at once in ADDITION TO the possible effed up scenario would be simply overwhelming. For adults, it would be difficult. I can't even imagine trying to process that amount of information as a 12 or 13 year old.

It's a balancing act any way you look at it. Don't tell them and you'd be possibly setting them up for a WAY HEAVY shocker....or tell them and take away the innocence that should accompany that age. Prepare them now, or run damage control later. Perhaps these are the same problems the puppet-masters wrestle with when discussing subjects like disclosure or Planet X.
No easy answers.

Sleeping Giant's blog

4 Comments

Comments

Full disclosure: I have no

psychegram — Jan 12, 2010

Full disclosure: I have no kids. That said....

First, my mother's policy was to tell us the truth (best as she knew it) as soon as we knew to ask. Thus when I was seven or eight, and inquired as to whether or not there really was a Santa Claus, she readily informed me that, no, the presents came from her and Dad.

Second, children are more resilient than they're given credit for. This is your son, yes, so especially he's no doubt familiar with things like war and crime (no doubt like many young boys they make up a significant fraction of his mental universe) so there's not really much point in sugar-coating things too much. If he's ready to ask the question, he's ready to hear the answer.

(Then again, maybe I was just a weird kid. My invisible friend "Sgt. Shultz" was killed by an invisible tank shell when I was five and, so my parents tell me, never heard of again. Apparently I took it well.)

Where I think the line is being crossed in terms of violating innocence is if you deliberately set out to disillusion a child who hasn't already started to question the illusions of childhood. So basically, yeah: if he's asking questions, tell him the truth, best as you know it ... and make sure too he knows that you don't really know, and that no one does, and that ultimately no one can decide what to think about anything but him.

The Revolution is Within

If your kid has access to

Vincenz0h — Jan 12, 2010

If your kid has access to the internet he's probably already seen crazier shit than you have!

A relative of mine has a little boy and she was telling us how he came to her one day crying saying "I don't want to grow up! I don't WANT to have sex!..." just bawling his eyes out. Turns out he stumbled upon some seriously graphic pornography involving cutting/blood festishes, etc. She had to calm him down and show him some normal amateur porn and explain that sex isn't actually (normally) like that.

We all laughed, but imagine what was going through this kids head, right?!

truth, beauty and goodness

sandmolder — Jan 14, 2010

Perhaps in that order. Yes, coverups only fester far worse days ahead.

Innocence, IMO can be an emotional path to reason. So parental introductions do take incredible patience from all other life distractions. How can parents actually take so much time, in case a kid actually develops real thoughts? (Perhaps luckily many kids do not develop many thoughts). My parents were way too busy with making a living (in the 50's), besides near-aged siblings also proved difficult in my mind, competition and control issues, so difficult for the 'baby'. Yet dad apparently devoted his adult life to trying to reveal his WWII experience. While his publishers would not readily accept challenging truths in those days. The markets were not there. Yet it was his shaking his head in sort of a agnostic resolve (with occasional sarcasm) which seemed adequate in my mind's eye. He cared, but did not have a solution to big pictures. His big question of "why", (in general), actually was a bit inspiring for my child's imagination. The caring also seemed truth enough, (parental love).

Internet in the 50's? That would have been something. Yet imagination was perhaps equally fulfilling. In my neighborhood, we invented everything from toys to games. Times were not so affluent, Eisenhower was far more realistic. Subsequent presidents have totally shipped out all American assets and hopes with those things. Trading our eternal debt for mass produced items, whose prolific-pollution has spread over foreign shores. Did i hear our 'credit-line' in the US is now 9 trillion?

The sooner kids get on to a track of reasoned reasoning, the better. Why allow materialistic-hynosis to ruin their consciousness? I think kids can fall in love with a mission to correct unfathomable error. Also, it is indeed calm confronting, with a loving coach, which teaches a child, to best the evil foes of nightmares. Do explore your preferred knowledge base with them, in quality family time?

Agenda 21

sandmolder — Jan 14, 2010

Ya, an interesting subject. My lack of faith in any of it is that international law is almost completely 'santa claus' for sheepish adults anywhere. I'd trust the UN if not for it's insidious and ludicrous support of big-box-pharma and earlier 'the green revolution'. Two huge examples killing progress today, IMHO.

With a quick partial scan just now, i see that they do not seem to get into the "inconvenient parts" of pollution, export of pollution, slave labor, real-health, etc... On and on.

I should love the UN, my mom devoted a long career in FAO, part of the UN, long story... Yet it was FAO which came up with one of the most insidious dictums 'Codex Alimentarius'. I can not express enough disapproval of it. It alone makes me very suspicious of UN motives, the WHO with the flu scam, etc...