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We Endangered Our Children
And It Wasn’t a Bad Decision
The crux of it, the hindsight thesis, is that my wife and I took our two young, innocent, American and Americanized children to a place of violence. Did we know? There’s a yes and no answer to that question. But yeah, we knew what was happening in Pakistan before we went.
We’d accepted teaching positions at the Lahore American School, in Lahore, Pakistan. This was January 2007, for jobs beginning in August of 2008. Our children were in 3rd and 6th grades when we left Florida, with everything we owned in nine duffel bags. The boy, 8 years old, had one suitcase dedicated entirely to Legos.
Had it been just my wife and I, none of this would matter. You should do what you want with your own life. But your kids? That’s different. When we accepted the jobs, Pakistan was on the mend. Elections were scheduled, bombings were limited to the Tribal Regions bordering Afghanistan. Relations with India were thawing.
Then in February of 2007, before we’d even left, it all fell apart. Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. The Taliban began bombing cities. Riots. Extremism.
Still, we’d signed contracts and given notice to our schools. And everyone in Lahore kept re-assuring us that the threat we saw on the news was not the reality on the ground.
