From a New York Times column by Alex Kingsbury headlined “What I Told My Daughter About War”:

There comes a point in every child’s life when he or she asks about war.

My 7-year-old daughter reached that milestone this week. “Are there wars happening right now?” she asked as we used a glue gun to build the Egyptian pyramids out of sugar cubes at our dining table.

I’m paid to think and write about conflicts and violence, but I was unprepared for my daughter’s question. Not the topic per se but rather a shared vocabulary to discuss it.