Randomly, in the car this past weekend, Liam asked, "When the police shoot bad guys, do they bury them?" Naturally, this spurred one more fascinating conversation stream, as follows:
Me: Um, well, if the bad guy died, he would have a funeral so his family could come and say goodbye to him before he was buried.
Liam: Bad guys have families? Why?
Me: Well, (note my favorite word for giving myself another moment to think) even people who make bad choices have people who love them. Everyone has parents, some people have brothers, sisters, friends, and grown-ups can be married . .. .
(Pause)
Liam: Oh. So why are they bad guys?
Me: Well, it isn't that easy. No one is all bad or all good. People just make good decisions or bad decisions. Bad guys are just people who make really bad decisions that can hurt other people.
Liam: Then why do police shoot them?
Me: Well, police don't want to shoot or hurt anyone, but they will if someone won't stop being bad, and they need to protect someone else. But they don't like hurting people, even people making bad decisions. If they liked to shoot people, they wouldn't be police officers, they'd be bad guys.
Liam: Oh.
Another day of deep thoughts. Whew.
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1 comment:
That is so much like a conversation I had with Jamie today, who is fascinated by "criminals." "Where are the criminals?" "Why we never see the criminals?" "Are police super-heroes?" "Why criminals are bad?" and on and on and on.... must be a four-year-old thing!
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