Who's Bin Laden? Kids Born After 9/11 Want to Know

[apples and oranges]

President Obama certainly wasn't taking the sensibilities of West Coast children into consideration when he made his stunner of a speech Sunday night: Osama bin Laden is dead. It took parents by surprise. We weren't ready, had no time to hustle the kids into bed before flipping on the television.

Minutes before, my girls, 3 and 6, had been frolicking in their bubble bath. Now, shivering in towels, these children born after four airplanes attacked a September sky, had a question: who is Bin Laden? (More on Time.com: Bin Laden: How They Got Him - And What Happens to al-Qaeda Now)

With that query, the de facto practice of carefully tiptoeing around the enormity of 9/11 unraveled. Twitter user erraggy tweeted: "We were eating dinner out with our kids when the news broke. Surreal explaining Osama bin Laden to our daughter who was 4 months old on 911."

With kids, you start simply: Osama bin Laden was a bad guy who hated America. Bad guys, kids get. Their world is colored in black and white. Something - or someone - is good, or it's not.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/httphealthlandtimecom20110502whosbinladenkidsbornafter911wanttoknowxidrssfullhealthsciyahoo

[Xithras]

1. The sadder thing I realized last night.

Is that no kid under 15 remembers life WITHOUT war.

When the news came out, I got into a conversation with my wife and kids about war. My 17 year old daughter remembers the 9/11 attacks, but only hazily remembers living in "peace" before that. From the perspective of my younger teenage son, we've ALWAYS been at war. He actually asked me, "Dad, what do we do with the Army when we're not fighting against people?" That sparked a whole OTHER conversation.