Children and the News and Religion

Last night, I called my grandson because of the reaction of all my friends’ children to the hurricane. I let him talk, the last time I talked to him, he was worried that if a tornado came and blew my house away and the baby and my daughter were separated who would take care of the baby. I told his mother, his father, and his other grandparents to not let him see the news. Anyway, last night he told me he say a dead body, I say what, he says a dead body floating in the water in NO, I say honey that is so sad about those poor folks down there and we should all help them but you know that we don’t live in a flood zone? I explained to him about the flood zone and all of that and then he says that God destroyed the world with a flood and maybe he’ll do it again, I say he promised not to and told him that the flood story was a story to teach us a lesson, he says what lesson and I say how to build boats. He says we didn’t know about boats, I say no, I say besides, if the flood did really come and it really did happen, don’t you think that some of those people had enough sense to use grappling hooks to climb on the ark. Then I reminded him about the Bible being a big book of really good stories and that was it and that God doesn’t send water or fire or wind to hurt people. Hmmm wonder why he connected the flood myth with NO, could be the damn fundamentalists who are raising him. I also lied and told him the dead bodies that he saw on television were not real bodies but fake, that they staged them there so that people will watch the news. He says really and I say really. I say for him to stop worrying about the flood that all the people are out and the government is rebuilding their homes and the children are all with their parents and the dogs and cats and horses and cows and all animals are on a huge farm being taken care of until their owners can come get them. He says yeah, a big farm, and I say yeah and he says can I come visit you and I say yeah and we’ll go play in the sand.
It is raining and I have my door open and can almost feel the spray of the rain and wish I could go stand in it and get soaked but I am so old that wet clinging clothes irritate me. I sent an email to my grandson and told him that it is raining here but not a lot and for him to remember that it rains every season change, the way the atmosphere gets cleaned and the way we get our water back from the sky after it has been evaporated. Geeze children shouldn’t have these worries.