6yo: Left
11yo: Ow!
6: Right
Dad: Ow!
6: Right
Dad: Ow, why are you throwing cashews?
6: Left
11: Ow! Dad! Make it stop!
Dad: I’ll have those thank you
6: But that’s my morning tea
11: So why were you throwing it everywhere?
6: Grandpa said nuts have wings
Dad: What?
6: He called Nan a right-winged nut
Dad: Ah
11: Actually, he did. Then she called Grandpa a left-wing nut
Dad: I see
6: And I thought they were just being weird, but then I saw those cashews and thought that they look a bit like they have wings so I was seeing which way they fly
Dad: Ok. That makes sense
11: It’s about politics, silly
6: Oh, not politics again. Boooring.
11: I don’t think it’s boring. It’s about our future. Grandpa says right wing nuts are making our world more dangerous.
Dad: Do you know what Right Wing means?
11: Yes, it came from the French Revolution, where the politicians sitting to the right of the president of the Parliament wanted to keep old things the same, like kings and inequality.
Dad: I did not know that
6: Did you learn that on Wikipedia?
11: Yes
6: Can you look up which nuts can fly?
11: Nut means crazy person and wing means which side of politics they come from. It’s nothing to do with flying
Dad: Actually, the word nut is not an ok thing to call people. Nor is crazy, really.
11: But it is crazy to hurt people for being different from you
Dad: No, that’s just wrong.
6: Nan called Grandpa crazy as well as a nut.
11: I’m talking about people in the news, really badly hurting others
Dad: Both of those things are wrong. Calling people nasty names is a kind of hurt too.
6: Yeah, getting called bad things hurts
11: Getting cashews thrown at you hurts too
6: But you know why I was doing it now
11: That doesn’t make it ok. You know what dad says-
6: An Explanation Is NOT An Excuse!
Dad: Oh, I don’t sound that bad, do I?
11: It’s not ok to throw cashews. It’s not ok to deny climate science. It’s not ok to stop people who love each other getting married. And it’s not ok to use the internet to hate and then go to a mosque and-
Dad: Hey! Ears!
6: What?
11: It’s crazy, Dad.
6: I hate mosquitoes too
Dad: Look…we sometimes call something crazy when we can’t explain or understand why someone would do it. But choosing a word like “crazy” sort of says someone who sees things differently from you must have a mental illness, which is hurtful to them and to people with mental illnesses.
6: What’s a metal illness?
11: So what is the best thing to call right wing people who hurt people and our planet because they want the old ways of being so unfair to stay the same?
Dad: If they break the law, you call them criminals, no matter why they did it.
11: And if they’re not breaking the law, but still doing the wrong thing? What then?
Dad: Then you grow up and get voted into parliament and change the law.
6: Rust
11: What?
6: Rust is a metal illness.
My Doctor's Handwriting 