Difficult conversations

So, my kids are getting old enough to start really listening to song lyrics, and thinking about them.  Thinking about them in surprisingly complex ways for as young as they are.

One of the albums I have on a jump drive in the Subaru is Flogging Molly's Drunken Lullabies.  The title track, in particular, recently sparked a conversation.



The line "Has the shepherd led his lambs astray/to the bigot and the gun?" really distressed both kids.

"Mama...why did...why would...how could a preacher tell the people in the church to do bad things?"

And thus, I found myself giving an abbreviated, age-appropriate lecture over the Troubles in Northern Ireland to my seven year old son and five year old daughter last Friday, on the way home from school.

My kids have no chance of being normal.  And that's a good thing.