Discussing slavery with a 6-year old

It happened a couple of weeks ago — about 3 weeks into the Corona virus-induced lockdown. After going through his usual toys and playthings to fill up his school-less days, my son turned his attention to the two giant maps on the wall. Finally! I had been secretly waiting for that moment for 3 years now. You see, Geography was one of my favorite subjects growing up — until History and Economics came along through high school and freshman year of college. So, even though I graduated with a degree in Chemical Engineering, those subjects always found a soft corner in me.

And now, here I was, staring at the maps of the United States and the World with my son, answering his barrage of questions. What the various countries and regions were, what they spoke and ate, how the countries came about, who ruled whom, and who rebelled against whom. This went on for hours every day — from first thing in the morning while eating breakfast to all the way in the night while getting ready for bed.

About 2 weeks into these sessions, he casually asked, “so Daddy, what other wars were fought in the US?”. Having grown up in India, my US history was limited to what I had learned for my US citizenship test and what I picked up watching Ken Burns’ documentaries on PBS. Since we had already covered the American War of Independence and the Mexican-American War, I blurted out, “Oh, there was the Civil War” without anticipating what would happen next.