Amanda Lamb: We'll always have Paris

Not unlike the line from the iconic film, "Casablanca," when most people think of the City of Lights, they think of romance, beauty, art …

“We’ll always have Paris,” Humphrey Bogart says to Ingrid Bergman.

Ironically, almost one year ago to the day, we took a family trip and we visited Paris. My children loved everything about it— the sights, the food, the people. And now, they are asking me about why anyone would want to hurt people in this city that they found to be so unbelievably welcoming and beautiful.

These are hard conversations to have with children. We don’t have good answers for them or for ourselves for that matter. As parents, all of these discussions are tempered with the knowledge that they are growing up in a world far more dangerous than the one we were raised in as children.

“I don’t know,” I tell them honestly. “No one really understands it.”

There is a delicate balance between giving children age-appropriate information about the tragedy and making them so fearful about everything that they can’t function in the world. There is no script, just your gut instincts as parents who know your own children and understand what they are capable of handling.

Does anyone remember Humphrey Bogart’s next few lines in Casablanca?

“We’d lost it (Paris) until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.”

I refuse to let terrorists hijack the Paris I know - my vivid memories of its beauty and history, my fantasies as a child of its splendor learned from movies and books. Whatever Paris means to you, let’s take it back …