August is a strange time for a child to have a birthday in New York. With friends and family scattered in different directions, children’s birthday parties must wait until September.

So this week, on my son’s sixth birthday, it was just his immediate family that snacked at Dylan’s Candy Bar, bowled at Chelsea Piers, got soaked on the Beast, and played tennis until it was too dark to see the balls.

The Beast, a speedboat that races down the Hudson River from 42nd Street to the Statue of Liberty and back, is one of our favorite family activities. Music blares from the speakers as the salty waves crash over the edge of the speedboat. The surly captain throws water balloons and pumps super soakers at passengers, like me, who think they’ll stay dry by sitting in the center aisles.

When we reached the halfway point in the ride, the Beast stopped for a few minutes. Against the clear blue sky, we had a spectacular view of the Statue of Liberty, gleaming with her golden torch. When we looked on the other side of the boat we saw the skyline of Lower Manhattan. The captain explained where the World Trade Center had been. As a native New Yorker, I need no such guidance. The towers are a gaping absence from a familiar landscape.

With my young brood, I stayed focused on Lady Liberty.

“When my great-grandparents arrived in America, they arrived by boat. And after weeks of being on a filthy, crowded ship, they knew they had made it when they saw the Statue of Liberty,” I told them.

Even with the blaring rock ‘n roll, they were listening closely.

“They cried with happiness because they knew they had arrived in a country where they were finally free. Free to worship any religion. Free to wear any kind of clothing. Free to live where they wanted to live.That’s what this country is all about: freedom.”

Lately as I lie in bed trying to fall asleep, I wonder how many more generations of Americans will enjoy such freedom. I’m not usually the type to ponder such grandiose ideas. Five years ago, I would have just thought that each generation inherits its own set of problems. But today, I genuinely worry about the world our children are inheriting.

It’s not Hezbollah or al-Qaeda that worry me most. It’s the apathy of the rest of the world. Russia, China, almost all of Europe and even some of our own representatives can’t seem to distinguish between an attacked democracy’s right to defend itself and terrorists who seek to kill as many people as possible.

“Will our great-grandchildren wear burkas?” I asked my husband late one night.

“How do you think people felt during World War II?” he said, trying to reassure me. “And that gave way to more than 60 of the most prosperous years.”

But 60 years ago, did it feel politically incorrect to label a group of people evil? Did Americans wake up each morning with pictures of slaughtered German children on the covers of their newspapers? Did Americans care equally about the lives of their enemy as they did about their own? Did public opinion seem to determine the course of war?

I spend a few months each year in South Africa, and parents there, just like parents here, teach their children that they should never hit another child. But with that message comes another lesson. If a child picks a fight with you — now that’s different. You make sure to show that child that he made a colossal mistake. And if you have to beat that child to a bloody pulp to make sure he gets that message, so be it.

The point is, teaching your children survival techniques is entirely different than teaching them aggression.

When did we forget the importance of protecting ourselves? When did we become more concerned with the loss of enemy lives than with the loss of our freedom — not to mention the loss of American lives?

It’s our freedom and our children’s freedom that’s at stake. This generation better stand up and deal with its set of problems. The time when selfdefense could be confused with aggression is over. Survival is at stake.

sarasberman@aol.com