“If you see someone sitting by themselves at lunch, invite them to your table,” I told my boys when they each began elementary school. “If you notice someone being bullied, say something kind and then tell a teacher.”
From the moment my sons were born, my most important job as their mother was to shape them into kind, respectful children. I wanted them to be the reason the lonely kid felt welcome at school. I wanted them never to think twice about being friends with people who look, pray or think differently than we do. It was easy enough during their early childhood, when President Barack Obama spoke on our television with elegance and compassion. He set the example, and I reiterated it.
But last week, Donald Trump won the White House for the second time, and everything changed. My boys were young during Trump’s first term, and although they remember an overall feeling of dismay in our home, the details of his presidency didn’t have much of an impact on their development. But as my older son begins his teenage years and my younger son follows closely behind, this will be the presidency they remember from the core of these formative years.
I grew up in the 1980s and ’90s, when presidential politics meant two candidates debating civilly over their differing opinions and plans to better our country ― both of them hoping to inspire children to become exceptional citizens. The discourse was family-friendly, and both sides offered a model of leadership and maturity that children could learn from. Today’s children, though, are growing up amid elections where one side demonstrates leadership and the other embraces division, intolerance and cruelty.
“Always tell the truth,” I instructed my sons. “The truth is always the right answer.” Teaching children good morals is simple when adults, especially authority figures, set the example. But Trump has made enough misleading statements and told enough flat-out lies to warrant a lengthy Wikipedia page cataloging them. This is who our boys are now in danger of seeing as a role model.
The Trump administration will inevitably create a dangerous world for girls as they navigate the murky waters of abortion bans and the downstream effects of chauvinistic leadership. But our boys have a lot to lose, too, from witnessing men like the president-elect rise to the top. Trump is the opposite of everything I’ve taught my sons to be, and I suspect they’ll question the morals I’ve encouraged in them as…
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