What Do We Tell Our Kids?
by Reed Galen
I have two daughters. They see and hear everything. And everything they see and hear they have questions about. Not “Why is the sky blue?” type questions, but queries that make me wonder how I produced kids who are already smarter than I am.
Yesterday afternoon, driving home from camp, the radio newsreader was recounting President Donald Trump’s Executive Order halting the removal of children from their parents at the border. Both of my children heard “children being taken from their parents,” and bombarded me with questions.
My younger daughter was scared she was going to be taken away from her mother and me. I told her that wasn’t going to happen but my older one was relentless. Over the next 10 minutes I tried to explain the dynamics of immigration, why people would leave their homes in Mexico and Central America to come to the United States.
“Most people aren’t as lucky as we are,” I told them. “We live in a safe place.” This did nothing to calm them; not for their own safety but for that of kids they don’t know and will likely never encounter.
“Where are the kids?” My older daughter asked. “They’re living in big warehouses,” I told her. “Warehouses?!?!” She was incredulous. The younger one: “Do they have stuffed animals?” Now I feel the blood rush to my face and the pit in my stomach grow.
“No, sweetie, I don’t think they have stuffed animals.” She didn’t like this answer more than any of the others I’d tried to give her.
More questions I’m eloquent enough to answer. “That’s wrong!” One of them said. “We need to break this rule! Call the police and tell them to we’re going to break this rule!” Two civil disobedience practitioners in training. Bursting.
This is where America is 2018. Two kids, not even a combined 15 years old are smart enough to know when something is fundamentally wrong and unfair. We shouldn’t need our own children reminding us that the policies and practices of the United States lack basic human decency.
Despite the president’s actions yesterday, there are still thousands of kids, a number likely to grow before we get an accurate count, living apart from mom and dad. How is any parent, one who has seen the fear in their child’s eyes from the thunderstorm or that first nightmare, not instinctively angered and sickened by the idea that anyone would consider this, let alone actually begin doing it.
We tell our children that lying is wrong, but daily put up with it from the highest office in the land. We tell our children to be kind to one another, but we’re not kind to those who are most vulnerable. We tell our children to stand up to bullies, but we accept one as our Commander in Chief.
What we’re seeing at the border is terrible. For our country, it’s the latest extension of a trope we like to say but don’t often really think about: Elections have consequences. Donald Trump may not have created the environment that helped him get elected, but he and his administration have done everything in their power to expand the chaotic and ugly nature of our politics; policy is the next victim.
As we pulled into our driveway, my older daughter said, “I hope those kids at least have each other.” From the mouths of babes.
Reed Galen is an independent political consultant.
