The Fear

I love the song by Ian Brown – The Fear. Its a really clever song with lyrics like this

Finding eternity arouses reactions
Freeing excellence affects reality
Fallen empires are ruling
Find earth and reap

Fantastic expectations, amazing revelations
Final execution and resurrection
Free expression as revolution
Finding everything and realizing

You’ve got the Fear

But its got me thinking about the fear that it appears a lot of people are experiencing at the moment following the barbaric attacks in Paris on Friday.

Social Media Fear

Facebook seems to be breeding this fear, every other story on my news feed is about the events from Friday. People sharing their stories or people with their views on what happened. Most saying ‘you have to read this story’ dragging you in to read it. I have read a few and if I am honest it has made me incredibly sad and scared. I am scared that people can be so evil to do things like this. And that I have to explain these kind of events to my children. I am scared I admit it about going into London, but you know what I am not stopping anything in my normal life through fear of the tiny % of the population who feel the desire to carry out the atrocities. So I will be going to Mumsnet Blogfest in London on Saturday and we will be going to the London Aquarium on Sunday for Jacks birthday and I will be going out for my best mates birthday drinks in the city on Wednesday. Nothing will stop me living my normal life.

Playground chatter

My 8 year old eldest son came home yesterday and told me about a game him and his mates were playing at school. It involved terrorists and guns and many of the boys in his class. It was lunchtime so after the school assembly where they talked about Paris and did the 1 minute silence. But the boys had obviously not understood. We had a chat last night about what happened and why it happened in Paris, we had already had a similar chat about the Russian airplane that was bombed just a few days earlier. I think he understood what I was trying to explain. I am very much so a parent who believes in not hiding things from my children, provided they are old enough to understand. Dylan at 8 is more than capable of understanding the event and I want him to not feel the fear. To be aware that its a tiny minority of extremists out there do these evil things and to be frank there is more chance of being run over by a car than being victim in these mindless terrorist crimes.

Local Fear

I have noticed also on social media more fear about local scare stories. Just this week I have heard about cars stopping next to Knebworth school girls asking them to get in the car. Or another story about a car having something thrown under it and being forced to stop on a dark road. Both happened near where I live..and with all the shares on social media we are being filled with fear. Why not give your children a talking to about the dangerous things in life, make them aware of what is right and wrong. And maybe explain a bit about what is happening in the news, they are only going to overhear stuff and hear things at school so why not give them a version of events suitable for their ears.

Give your kids a big hug and kiss when you get home from work or when you collect them from school. Tell them you love them and maybe send a little prayer to all those people affected by the terrorists attacks all over the world and through all time. MMPx