"Chet of Arabia"

There’s a fairly wonderful short piece in the Atlantic about bringing a 3-year-old to Jordan, just for fun. Subtitled, “In defense of exotic travel with young children,” it deals with the lecturing tendency of nervous, post-9/11 American parents who never want their kids to do anything. “They told me that your average 3-year-old does not revel in ancient history, scenic majesty, or a cameo in an Indiana Jones film—and so will not appreciate such a journey. They said I had no business taking my child to the Middle East, especially when my husband, a soldier in the U.S. Army, was deployed to the slums of Sadr City in neighboring Iraq. An American mother and child would stand out, would be an easy target for mishap or mayhem.” Blah, blah, blah.

     posted 9 March 2010 by Michael Scott Moore

  1. Three is a little young. My kid’s 10 and I am just now spending two weeks working her way into Europe. She has more than 1000,000 air miles and I have never waivered from her doing trael. But when she was three…I don’t think she even knew how many frequent flyer points she was racking up, let alone, admiring the history of anything. Sheesh…she’s 10. But the funniest story was when I was in Australia at a conference after 9-11 and all the ford employees were told not to be around “any American or anyone that appeared to be American.” That always cracked me up. So I am suppose to be a target in Adelaide? Think about that. How do you not “look” like an American in the whitest place in the world? And what does an Aussie do in Egypt? Panic?

    — e    Mar 11, 03:57 pm    #