With all the political rhetoric going on right now, and tensions high, I’m going to ask that you put your political beliefs aside and stay with me on this one. Whether you are conservative or liberal, republican or democrat, lean left or right, I implore you to keep an open mind and hear me out.
I’ve stayed silent for a very long time, but I feel like I need to say something. I’m scared. Not just because the leader of the free world could be led by someone who says things that make me cringe. But because of the hoards of people who support him. People who think it’s okay to say horrible things about women, the disabled and countless minorities.
I’ve had to unfollow and unfriend an incredibly large amount of people on social media simply because reading their rhetoric was making me sick. The attacks they were making on others, the incredibly horrific comments they were spewing, and the uneducated, uninformed arguments they were attempting to debate.
There were SO many times I was tempted to say something, but I remained silent. Choosing to take the high road, and distance myself from their hate. It was the way I was raised. You don’t go to the gutter with others, you rise above them.
It reminds me of the time I was learning to drive, and I got on the highway for the first time with my mom in the front seat. Scared, and gripping the wheel with white knuckles, I was doing 35 in at 50 mph zone. There was a truck behind us, tail-gating and honking his horn. Eventually he cut us off and flicked me the bird. I was enraged. “I’m trying to learn here!” I yelled at him. Although my efforts were fruitless as he couldn’t hear me. I reached for the horn to honk back, and my mother said the following. “Don’t you dare sink to his level, I raised you better than that!”
She had a point.
The other night when First Lady Michelle Obama made her speech and made the statement, “when they go low, we go high,” it struck a nerve. It put into words what I feel, and what I want to instill in my children, in the most eloquent way. And here’s the part where I may lose some of you, quite frankly I don’t care. The First Family has done this ‘rise above the garbage thing’ incredibly well. Regardless of your politics, you can’t argue that this president has faced racism, people (Trump) questioning whether he was born here, his faith and his motives. The First Family has handled all of this with grace, dignity and more patience than I could muster.
Moreover, what an incredible family value to instill in your children. It was instilled in me, and I’m working on making it stick. (We all have our moments). More importantly, as I work on this virtue in myself, I strive to teach it to my own children. I see my peers who are going low on social media, raising children who will belong to my kids’ generation. Inevitably these same kids will grow up in households where they think it’s okay to degrade people who don’t think like you, or look like you, or worship like you. It’s up to my husband and I to make sure our kids don’t go in the gutter with them.
It’s not easy, it takes an incredible amount of self-control, but isn’t that another characteristic we want in our children? Self-control? What a concept! What I notice about most of these comments and shared memes is that they were most likely done in an emotional knee-jerk reaction. No thought was given. No time to think. Just hit post.
Don’t we teach our children to not react emotionally with mean-spirited words? The same parents I know who are teaching their children not to be violent or mean, support someone who spews hate.(Breathe, don’t go there, rise above it). As maddening as it is, it’s out of my control. Their behavior is out of your control too.
What is in your control is your vote, your voice. All things being fair, I want to quote someone from the other side of the party.
“Vote your conscience”-Ted Cruz
When we make a very important decision this fall, one that will undoubtedly impact the lives of our children we must vote our conscience. Those are very wise words.
One last thing before I go. My late grandfather, a staunch republican and Methodist minister was not happy in the least when Bill Clinton won in 1992. The night of the election, he and my grandmother were over at our house watching the votes come in. When it was inevitable that Clinton was going to be president, my 9-year-old eyes were set on him waiting for his response.
“Well whether we agree with it or not, he’s our president now and we must support him,” he said.
How great it would be if we could all have that same sentiment today? If we all choose to go high, instead of low. Listened instead of ranted.Spoke words of encouragement instead of hate. Offered a helping hand instead of closed fist. We don’t need to make America great again, we need to make it kind again.