From Friday Mom – Erin:
Schools are closed here in our nation’s capital as we usher in a new administration and await what these next days, weeks, and months will bring. As much as I would like to isolate Rory and Charlotte from the rancor and divisiveness that has permeated the news cycle in the past months, as those of us in urban bubbles lick our wounds and wonder if this is all a dream from which we will soon awake or perhaps some innovative reality show in which we have all been cast, I intend to show them both the days events from the comfort of our home and the safety of our own couch.
Charlotte, I am certain, will spend all of five minutes (if that) before insisting that one of the two of us assist her in baking, clothing her baby, or otherwise catering to her demands.
Rory, however, may be more interested. Consistent with my remarks in September, my aim is to use the day as a lesson in civics–a foundational discussion on the peaceful transition of power, and a focus on the institutions that our founders have created for us. I will resist the urge to sour his young mind with my real views, or my true fears. I will, instead, encourage him to join me in watching the pageantry and speak with him about the great responsibility that rests in all people in a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. We’ll see how long it lasts before he asks me how this all relates to the Rebel Alliance or Emperor Palpatine (his most recent obsession). And I will, again, resist.
Parenting, after all, is a constant exercise in framing reality in a way that is accessible and understandable to the youthful audience. It does him no good to lament the future of American politics or regale him with my thoughts on how we are living in the thick of the factionalism predicted all too well in Federalist No. 10. We cannot control the times at which we are forced to teach our children hard lessons. We do not hold that kind of power as parents. Deaths, disappointments, bad days, or hard losses. They happen. Try as we may to shield them, I view my job as a parent as filtering those lessons through an age-appropriate, yet honest, lens.