Last Saturday while I was at a friend’s house, she received a phone call from one of her daughter’s friend’s mothers. It seemed that the mother had received an invite to Berkeley Plantation in Charles City, Virginia, where the president was to speak this week. She wanted to know if my friend’s daughter might like to join them.
My friend and her husband are both academics – my friend has a PhD in Political Science and her husband a law degree – and like most of the academics I know (and like most of the country) are highly critical of the president and the entire current administration. Though they are careful not to discuss many things in front of their daughters, politics is not among those forbidden topics. In their household, GW and his reign of terror are fair game.
But my friend (we’ll call her PS, for lack of a better pseudonym) didn’t want her daughter to miss out on a chance to meet our supreme leader, even if he is leading us somewhere no one wants to go. So PS agreed to let her six year old daughter join her friend on a trip to meet the president, and in preparation for such a trip, she and her husband had a brief talk with their daughter about propriety.
Some examples:
When addressing the president, you should call him Mr. President, or President Bush. You should not call him Bushie, or GW, or Son of Satan. Even if we do say those things at home.
If you get a chance to ask him a question, stick with something simple, like “What are you having for Thanksgiving?”
Do not ask him anything complicated, like “When will we be able to pull out of the Middle East?” He will probably just lie. Or make something up.
If he uses improper grammar or syntax, which he probably will, just let it slide.
We know that you are in first grade and are learning a lot about vocabulary and the English language, but it just wouldn’t be polite to correct him.
So PS’s daughter joined her friend on the trip to Charles City, where they were privileged *cough* enough to sit very near GW as he spoke about giving thanks and giving back. And after his speech, they were able to meet GW and very briefly greet him.
When recounting the story of her day to her mother, PS’s daughter told her that her friend had shaken the president’s hand, but when he reached out for hers, she didn’t take it.
PS told her daughter, “Well, I think it would have been all right if you shook his hand.”
Her daughter scrunched up her face as she thought about it for a moment, and said, “Well . . . No.”
I love that kid.
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