Backpacks and fear

I was shocked to read about parents transferring their own fears to their children by buying bulletproof backpacks (which don’t protect heads or limbs or frontal shots).

I grew up in Northern Ireland in the 1950s with the IRA having their “fun.” Standard were police stations with sandbags and barbed wire outside; the local power station guarded by police with dogs and machine guns.

When in Guide (Girl Scouts) camp we had to fly the Guide flag not the national flag, as the Union flag might have provoked an IRA attack, guns supplied (thank you so much) from the USA.

Our parents never dumped any fears on us about being shot or bombed – perhaps a holdover from the fatalistic attitude developed during WWII, when ” if a bomb has your name on it, there’s nothing you can do about it” – something Americans never had to worry about.

Valerie Derks

Deer Park