Raising Steady Kids in Unsteady Times

By DON ROLLINS

“These are the kind of conversations I have to have with my daughter on the way to school. Not, ‘How was your day?’ or ‘What do you want to do on the weekend?’ Nope. I have to have ugly talks about racism and violent, conservative men who plaster their vehicles with vulgar, misogynistic stickers.” — Walter Rhein, author, educator and parent

An ominous proliferation is taking place as the nation inches ever closer to the next presidential election - a malevolent submovement that should shame us as a people, but clearly doesn’t.

At issue is influential Republicans’ near-total lack of restraint when it comes to framing, then selling to the conservative masses the rabid, sophomoric slogans and rallying cries that now characterize their party: No catch phrase is too cruel, no thinly veiled verbal assault is out of bounds for this growing segment of GOP voters.

Two examples make clear just how much a part of the Republican meta-world this way of conducting democratic elections has become: “Joe and the Hoe Gotta Go”, and “Let’s Go Brandon”. The first is as obvious as it is misogynistic. If shock value was the goal when the phrase first appeared on everything from bumper stickers to billboards, it was a mission realized.

A second, likewise inane conservative rallying call is more opaque: During an after-race interview with NASCAR winner Brandon Brown, the crowd began chanting “F*** Joe Biden”. The interviewer confused the screed with the phrase, “Let’s Go Brandon.” And a semi-secret code phrase was born, complete with it’s own menagerie of merchandise and signage.

But while civility is laid low every time the Republican base generates a hate-filled tag line, the real losers are nowhere near voting age. While studies differ about the short- and long-term impacts of negative campaigns on children, it still follows that it’s left to parents and/or other caregivers to help their kids process the overt and covert political vitriol all around them. This is no small task and given the GOP’s love of hysteria, not one that will go away any time soon.

But there’s hope. In an online tipsheet for helping caregivers teach their young the basics of citizenship, the nonpartisan Common Sense Media offers some suggestions regarding ads in particular. Here are a few: Explain that ads are often opinions, not facts; Does the ad say anything positive, or is it just an attack?; Teach kids to notice the images, graphics, scenes as though it were a short movie to be broken down; Explain their (caregivers’) opinions and values; Teach children to think critically, and check the facts.

Hope and all, this is difficult and gritty work. There is nothing glamorous about mentoring kids in the ways of such a complex system of government, let alone being up front about people in this world who would trash the rules rather than either following them, or at least questioning them in a grownup way.

So our hats should be off, our hands extended to caregivers trying to raise steady children in decidedly unsteady times.

Don Rollins is a Unitarian Universalist minister in Jackson, Ohio. Email donaldlrollins@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, November 15, 2022

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