Had an interesting conversation with kiddo about this last night - and my parents at he same time. So three generations.
Grandparents’ view boiled down to: they have lived their lives, so it’s easy for them to align with a path that jeopardizes the future of younger generations. They feel bad about that, but there is nothing they can do to change the path we seem to be on.
My perspective was his generation has to handle a lot more than mine did, and that isn’t fair.
Kiddo’s perspective was - don’t worry about him, he’ll be fine. Worry about the people living in Ukraine. Besides, in the broader world and historical context, this is just one of many horrible atrocities, keep it in perspective- humans and despots regularly do horrible things. Always have, always will. And that we would all be surprised what his generation would be willing to sacrifice for the greater good.
So I take that conversation to reflect pretty well what geopolitics do to people