From: drabkin <arcanis>
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 16:54:50 -0700

Linda wrote: We all have thoughts (especially

Thank you for writing this, Linda. And my apologies to everyone on the list for the abortive part-of-a-message that shouldn't have been sent earlier today -- a child pushed the "send" button.

We need to realize, in this discussion, that children are intelligent beings, that children who are normal (and many who struggle with severe problems) do know the difference between fantasy and reality, between books and life, between stories and actual events. Otherwise we may appear as silly as the person who is currently calling for Harry Potter to be removed from schools on the grounds that "children don't know the difference between reality and fantasy". (Obviously the person who said that -- if she was quoted correctly in the newspaper account -- had never known a real live child.)

In short, children deserve respect, which includes the telling of truth, including unpalatable truths about the way people have behaved toward other people over the course of history.

Marian Drabkin
Received on Tue 19 Oct 1999 06:54:50 PM CDT