Canaries in the Coal Mine

Is there a special love that grandparents have for grandchildren?  I think most grandparents would say yes.  The fact that there is a generation between my two grandchildren and me doesn’t mean that I love them less than I love their parents.  I believe it does mean that I love my grandchildren differently from how I love their father and mother. 

I won’t dispute that the love I have of my grandchildren is related to their living seven hundred miles away.  Seeing them less than my wife and I would wish means that I rarely think of them without encasing those thoughts within a prayer for their protection and happiness.  Because I don’t view prayer as any form of magical thinking, I’m not saying my prayers have the power to automatically protect them, but I do hope that the prayers in some way undergird them as they face their challenges. 

What I am sure about is that becoming a grandparent has changed me.  I know that I read and hear the news differently as a grandparent than I did before they were born.  News stories now are met by the question “What will this development mean for the lives of my grandchildren and, by extension, all children?” 

Most of us have heard of how miners used to bring canaries down into the mines with them.  If there were a dangerous change in the air quality below ground, the canaries would react first.  Before technological devices were invented, canaries saved miners’ lives.      

Over the past months, I as a grandparent have felt like one of those canaries.  And I don’t believe I am the only grandparent who feels that way.  More and more stories in the news float the idea that nuclear war might be on the horizon.  Putin has dropped the “n” word (nuclear) more over these past months as his frustration with his invasion of Ukraine has increased. 

I have also heard more nuclear references and talk of World War III in relation to growing tensions between China and North Korea, on one side, and Taiwan, the US, and Japan on the other side.  This weekend, the nuclear reference was also used in reports of what Iran’s leadership might consider doing as its hold over the Iranian people crumbles. 

But the capper for me, the news story that had me feeling like a canary in a coal mine, was the one I read recently that explained where US government leaders would be taken if a nuclear attack were to happen. If that article was intended to leave me with a feeling that “See, everything will still continue as before,” it failed miserably.

So here is what this canary wants to make clear.  It isn’t wrong for journalists and politicians to raise our awareness that different countries in the world are moving closer to the nuclear option.  However, there is the danger that if the media uses that language enough, we won’t be surprised if such a war breaks out.

And that is the problem.  It’s a dangerous illusion to imagine that nuclear war can ever be isolated or in some way contained.  But even if an accidental launch by a reckless country like North Korea didn’t automatically trigger a response from the US, we still need to consider how the destruction of a highly populated area in South Korea, Japan, or the US would crush the hope in the future felt by every child in the world.   

I encourage all grandparents to become the canaries in our tense world.  While this might sound odd, don’t we sense that world leaders seem increasingly tired of living with this level of tension, even tired of history?   All world leaders need to hear one message clearly:  Do not mess with the future of our children and grandchildren.