How I Explained The 2016 Election To My 6 Year Old Daughter
Just hours after Donald Trump’s victory, people on cable news were telling me how to explain it to my child. These were the same people who, as alarming results poured in from Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio, had been totally inept at explaining the unfolding nightmare to me. If I had to unpack Trump’s win for my six-year-old daughter, I didn’t want help from Wolf Blitzer.
The day after the election, I got a mass e-mail from my daughter’s principal with more advice about what to say to her. He offered a script of aphorisms about living in a democracy, being a good loser, and respecting opinions different from our own. Every sentiment was noble and mature, but—c’mon, man. The chances of my performing this script convincingly were zero, and, unlike the chances that the Times gave Trump at the beginning of Election Night, they were not going to suddenly soar.
My track record for explaining horrible events to my children has never been good. When I tried to console my son after 9/11 (he was also six at the time), I used a baseball analogy. He was a big Yankees fan, so I thought that if I put the events in baseball terms they would make more sense to him. I told him that the United States was like a great team—just like the Yankees, in fact. And that the terrorists envied the United States, just the way other teams envied the Yankees. And that, just like the Yankees, the United States would win in the end. This seemed like a great explanation, and it did reassure him—until a few weeks later, when the Yankees lost the 2001 World Series to the Arizona Diamondbacks. The terrorists had won, thanks to a throwing error by Mariano Rivera.
The day after the election, I knew that when my daughter came home from school I would have to try, once and for all, to explain Trump’s victory to her. According to her principal’s e-mail, it had been discussed throughout the school day and had even been the subject of an assembly. But I was still at a loss. How could I explain what had happened without scaring her? As I saw it, millions of adults had done something very stupid on Election Day. There’s nothing more terrifying to a child than the idea that adults don’t know what they’re doing.
But then I thought, Maybe not. There’s a strong argument that there’s nothing more hilarious to a child than the notion of adults screwing up. The cliché of the bumbling sitcom dad, as well as every Kevin James movie ever made, relies on this principle. When kids see adults do something stupid, it makes them feel smarter and more secure about their own place in the world. Finally, I had something I could work with.
When my daughter came home, I sat her down at the kitchen table, gave her a Kit Kat from her hoard of Halloween candy, and offered this explanation of the election: “Imagine the stupidest thing you could ever do, like peeing on a stack of pancakes. Now, imagine that the United States is a stack of pancakes. Millions of grownups just peed on it.”
She started giggling. This explanation made sense to her. As she ran off to play, I was relieved, and grateful for the alacrity with which children laugh at their elders. But I am still waiting for someone to explain the election to me.
I'm sorry but 6-year olds don't need any of this explained to them.
ReplyDeleteChildren need to grow up normally without a hysterical parent taking their frustration of an election out on the child.
Make no mistake about it, this IS child abuse.