I love my kids, I just hate parenting
No one likes to discuss politics, or religion, or gun control, or any other hot button issue with strangers or acquaintances or extended family.
But as parents, we’re often forced into unpleasant conversations in order to care for our kids, and in 2017, there’s something new I want to know:
“Where do you stand on Trump?”
(This post originally ran on Scary Mommy, but as Trump’s habit of making sexist and misogynistic remarks continues to make news, most recently with last week’s comments to the French first lady, I thought I’d re-run it here.)
As a 40-year-old man, I’ve been in my share of locker rooms.
In those rare instances when I’m not minding my own business and/or shielding my eyes from the sight of the old men who inexplicably enjoy hanging around buck naked in the middle of midtown Manhattan gyms, I’ve had plenty of conversations with other men, both friends and strangers.
I’ve never discussed, let alone bragged about, a history and/or any methods of sexual assault. Not in a locker room, not anywhere.
There are a lot of posts going around from shell-shocked, well-meaning parents, discussing ways to talk to our kids about the fact that Donald Trump was elected President. (This is a good one.) There’s much to unpack: how he won, why he won, what this means for the future of our country, what it means about the present of our country, etc.
I have no answers to any of that (except the last one: there are a lot of ignorant and/or racist and/or misogynistic and/or short-sighted people in America). My oldest is only six years old, and while Detective Munch may not know much about politics or elections, he knows a bully when he sees one. He knows Trump is a mean, angry name-caller, even without the “benefit” of understanding the constant bigotry, misogyny, and xenophobia that comes out his mouth.
What he doesn’t know is why the country would elect someone like Donald Trump to lead it. And neither do I. So I’m not going to bother trying.
Read more about How to Distract Kids From “President Donald Trump” …
My six-year-old won’t be watching the first presidential debate tonight because a) he’s six and b) he doesn’t need to hear the terrible things people will say during the debate, and by “people” I mean me and by “terrible things” I mean the filthy words I will be yelling at the screen every time Trump speaks.
In a perfect world, Donald Trump will get crushed in November and retreat back to one of his gross hotels, never to be seen again except all the time everywhere because he is a craven opportunist with absolutely no shame and the media worships him. But that’s fine, he can have his TV appearances, so long as I never have to explain to my kids why a misogynistic bigot is President of the United States.
But it’s possible, and in order to be prepared for that possibility, I’ve begun trying to think of ways to explain President Trump in terms my six-year-old can understand.