Parenting in the age of Trump

Last updated: 02/02/2017 09:22 by DaisyWilson to DaisyWilson's Blog
Filed under: MummyBloggers
 
My youngest attends a Montessori which shares a building with the local primary school.
 
And on the day in which the United States of America inaugurated their 45th President, I overheard a small scrum of tiny boys, no more than six- or seven-years-old, holding a heated debate on Trump.
 
They argued about whether he'd started work yet and one berated the others for not watching the news enough.
 
When I mentioned this overheard conversation to the Montessori teacher she told me that all the kids seem to be curious about the incoming President; something about his manner had caught their attention.
 
 
Perhaps its his fluffy hair or peculiar orange tone, perhaps its the way he speaks in short repetitive bursts of words, the way he pouts his lips and balls his petite hands into angry fists.
 
Older kids have probably been like the rest of us, mesmerised against our will, unable to look away from the brash tweeting tycoon, who rants when he might be better off thinking, who hurls racist and misogynistic insults like it's the 1950's all over again.
 
One thing you have to give Donald Trump, he's no wallflower.
 
The news footage that night of a damp Washington DC crowning a tanorexic reality star to the most powerful position on the planet was depressing, dreary and surreal.
 
There stood a man who had made racist attacks against entire nations, had proposed blaming a world religion from entering the United States, who had bragged about how his wealth allowed him to sexually assault women.
 
 
I am the mother of two girls. I want progress in our society when it comes to how women are viewed and treated. Trump is not progress.
 
Progress came the next day when millions spilled onto the streets of American cities, onto streets around the world and marched and sang and held aloft sarcastic witty pithy signs.
 
They were there to stand up against sexism and racism and climate change denial and general nastiness and their message was loud and clear.
 
Donald Trump has not gone unnoticed by our children. They see him. The march against him was a powerful counterpoint to show our children that Trump does not go unchallenged.
 
At my daughter's secondary school Trump's wall is now being used as shorthand to describe something that has been greatly exaggerated in size.
 
They see Trump and they see through him. This gives me hope.
 
Daisy Wilson lives and works in West Cork surrounded by dairy farms and loud children.
 
Déanta in Éirinn - Sheology
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