BRATTLEBORO-When I was a child, I read The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. I had nightmares of hiding in a wall, under a floor, in the attic. Anne was discovered by the relentless killers who finally destroyed her life.
As I grew older, I wondered about the men who tortured people in the concentration camps. Doctors who masterminded cruel experiments. It was a terrible mystery.
Today, I wonder how people can torture, rape, maim, and kill Palestinians. It's a painful twist that the people tortured in Germany might be related to the people who are now torturers.
I think about how we are told not to spoil our children. I wonder how Israeli mothers of soldiers who are torturing, raping, and killing can stand this terrible use of their darlings. How do they turn over their precious youth to learn these cruel skills that are difficult and often impossible to unlearn?
We mothers tend to love our children. Teaching our children to harm others, to actually torture and rape - that is truly spoiling a child. This genocide is creating monsters and teaching evil.
How do we tell our children why people hurt each other? Why our country uses our tax money to harm men, women, and children and destroy their homes and cities? How do we teach our little ones about kindness, empathy, and love when across the globe we are sending war tools to destroy certain little children?
I write and write, but the pain is stuck beneath my ribs and inside my heart.
Under the energy of a quiet sunny day is the droning knowledge of missiles exploding and causing more orphans who might also have lost a limb from the bombs.
How do you teach children to think they can kill other children?
We need another way to be. I yearn to see a new dawn coming. To see that light of freedom in the children's eyes. A light that may dispel the terrible darkness in the Middle East. The same darkness that is in the heart of the U.S. military war machine. There has to be another way.
What if a child reads this letter and asks Mommy and Daddy, "Do you want me to hurt children when I grow up?"
Robyn Flatley
Brattleboro
This letter to the editor was submitted to The Commons.
This piece, published in print in the Voices section or as a column in the news sections, represents the opinion of the writer. In the newspaper and on this website, we strive to ensure that opinions are based on fair expression of established fact. In the spirit of transparency and accountability, The Commons is reviewing and developing more precise policies about editing of opinions and our role and our responsibility and standards in fact-checking our own work and the contributions to the newspaper. In the meantime, we heartily encourage civil and productive responses at [email protected].