They've Got To Be Carefully Taught

This morning, I participated in a ritual observed in many families at the start of summer: the departure of campers. Little Miss and her friends were heading off to camp. Last year, the coterie went for 10 days; this year, they were going for a month. Rain was pissing down as all the parents and lots of grandparents huddled under umbrellas while the kiddies check-in and picked their seats. Little Miss and her friends screamed and hugged when they all arrived. You'd think they'd not seen each other since last summer....instead of just the day before. Their excitement was contagious. I saw counselors who looked ever so familiar greeting campers, and then realized these were the kids and grandkids of my friends and I knew them as little kids. Very surreal. Several of my own friends were there and we sheepishly admitted we were just a little bit jealous that they got to go and we got to stay home. Finally, it was time to board the buses (there were 4) and we all started to wave at the window we thought our kiddo was at. You can't really be sure with tinted windows. We kept waving as all the buses passed by, and watched as they went around the corner. As Rabbi Allen used to admonish parents: There is no dancing in the parking lot until the buses are out of sight!

I never got to go to sleep-away camp...only to a brief sojourn at Camp Tekawitha Girls Scout Camp in Hampton Bays, New York. Not the same. My guys flat refused to go to sleep-away camp; they went to Camp Bubbe'n'Zayde in New York, complete with beach club and tennis camp, and that was not to be messed with. So I guess one might suggest Little Miss is living out my dream. All I can say is that I am thrilled she loves it! I woulda, too. 

But this really brings me around to this week's musings. Former Republican and co-founder of the Lincoln Project Rick Wilson wrote an essay on Substack that really got to me. What Will You Tell Your Kids takes a serious look at how we will talk about the virulent and vitriolic political posturing of this year's election. 

Funny thing was that just before I saw it, I had been talking with friends about how my dad sat me down and asked me how I would describe my anti-war demonstrations to my kids. We had been talking about right and wrong, whether or not we were obligated to support our national position on Vietnam, or were we obligated to try to change that opinion. I'll admit I was pretty hostile initially, but Dad was trying to get me to think ahead...action and outcome. What did I want to see happen and how did I want it to happen? Did I want to blow up Washington, D.C., or did I want representation in Congress to listen to us kids and heed our warnings? He was edging me to some really hard thinking to answer really hard questions. 

This was right after Kent State. Although I cannot say he was a friend, I met one of the Kent State 4, Jeffrey Miller (z"l), through a mutual friend who was his neighbor in Plainview. His murder radicalized me. I wanted to be angry and outraged, not thoughtful and reasonable. I did want to burn down buildings. And I did not want to think about the questions my dad was asking.

Every once in a while, I would think about those questions....especially as our kids did not seem to be protesting anything and that worried me and Ziggy. Where was their outrage about something important? Where was their passion? 

Still, when our kids asked us about our participation in the protests of the late 60s and 70s, we were as honest as we could be. We talked about the anger, but we also talked about how society must be changed in order to continue to function; that burning down Congress is not a realistic answer. We asked what issues they wanted to take on....and didn't get much of an answer....other than the legalization of pot.

But when Feckless Loser came on the scene, Ziggy was gone, and I was watching both guys sit up and take notice... by myself. Oh, how I wished Ziggy was with me for those conversations. There was talk of what happens if....

And then it happened. Feckless Leader set fine examples with his pussy-grabbing remarks, his porn-star payouts, and bizarre, on-the-edge-of-completely-inappropriate remarks, about his own daughter. His four years in office were a far cry from the gravitas we'd all come to expect. When the insurrection happened on January 6, 2021, it seemed our entire government was in peril. His attacks have only increased in ferocity and fantasy....and the MAGA people are eating it all up with a dirty spoon.

Now, we 're poised to rinse and repeat. How is this possible?

Wilson was asked by a Republican friend why Biden was a better choice than Trump. It was a serious question, and one Wilson took seriously. In the middle section of the essay, he wrote:

Do you want your sons to treat women the way Donald Trump treats women? With contempt, entitlement, and violence? When you look at your boys, do you think, “I sure hope they grow up to commit sexual assault?”

 

Do you want your daughter to be a target for or a victim of a man like Trump? When you look at her, do you imagine her with a husband like him? A man who will cheat on her while she’s pregnant, demean her when she grows older, and disrespect her at every turn? Do you dream of the day that some future Donald Trump grabs your daughter by the pussy?

 

Do you hope that your kids will treat people the way you’ve taught them…or the way Trump treats anyone beneath him: with contempt, cruelty, ugliness, and lies?

 

Will you tell them he was the one role model they should follow?

This is where the rubber meets the road: what lessons are we teaching our kids?

I cannot answer that question for you, gentle readers; I can only say if you're not asking yourself the same questions, you are part of the problem and the fall of the United States as we know it will be exacerbated by your lack of action. 

You think I'm kidding? Look at the pro-Hamas movement spreading across America. The supporters of this movement are pro-terrorist. They are applauding the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11 whether they realize it or not. They don't know which river or which sea, so don't count on them knowing which World Trade Center. In an age when colleges and universities are providing "safe spaces" from triggers, administrations are negotiating for the approval of acts of violence against Jews. Their overt willingness to kill, destroy, and obliterate Jews should scare way more people than it does. You cannot say you want peace while threatening an entire people with destruction. 

Bit of a conundrum, dontcha think?

Feckless is not the root cause of the the pro-terrorism movement; he is only a symptom. How he conducts himself reinforces the okay-ness of what the anti-Jewish movement demands. While they claim to be against him, they are, in reality, mirroring his behavior. And if you're not speaking to your kids now about the unacceptable rhetoric and behavior, then you are contributors to the overthrow of democracy in these here United States. 

Keep in mind Sir Isaac Newton's Third Law of Motion: every force in nature has an equal and opposite reaction. 

If you think Feckless Complainer is the lesser of two evils and that you are justified voting to return him to office, then sit down, shut up, and figure out how you're gonna pay for everything when all those social safety nets you've come to expect to see you through retirement dry up. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Think about what you're teaching your kids. Rodgers and Hammerstein set it to music in 1949's SOUTH PACIFIC:

You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught from year to year,
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear—
You’ve got to be carefully taught!

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a different shade—
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate—
You’ve got to be carefully taught!
You’ve got to be carefully taught!

I was cheated before
And I’m cheated again
By a mean little world
Of mean little men.
And the one chance for me
Is the life I know best.

To be on an island
And to hell with the rest.
I will cling to this island
Like a tree or a stone,
I will cling to this island  

And be free—and alone.