Parenting During a Political Crisis

Last updated on: October 20, 2016 at 9:30 am by Suzanne Ross

Parenting During a Political Crisis 2016-10-20T09:30:44-05:00 Suzanne Ross

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What is happening in American politics and how do we talk to our kids about it? It’s hard for me to shake the feeling that we are facing a political crisis that is symptomatic of a deeper cultural one. Let me begin by saying that my comments here only indirectly refer to the crisis of morality, decency, and reason represented by Donald Trump. His flagrant disregard for common courtesy, human rights, and the democratic process disqualify him from holding the highest office in our land. To debate this point is to be distracted from the deeper crisis that confronts us.

The Biggest Loser Wins

The deeper crisis we face is that we have fallen into a self-defeating pattern of competing with one another to be the biggest victim. This is playing out in stories about economic hardship from politicians and mainstream media about just how dire the situation is for the jobless and underemployed and just who is to blame for it – anyone who competes with me for jobs or attention. As the stories get amplified on social media, our anxiety and fear is stoked to a fever pitch. We become desperate for solutions now, by any means possible. Being told to just grin and bear it for the good of the country while sympathy is extended to the ones causing my problems feels like callous disregard for my suffering.

But isn’t the suffering of others just as real as mine? Unfortunately, we have turned suffering into a competitive arena in which there are winners and losers. We compete for victim status by insisting that our suffering is the most extreme and therefore the most worthy of attention. Other campaign issues fall into this same trap of competitive suffering. The concern for tilting the Supreme Court either for or against abortion rights or marriage equality is also about taking sides based on which victim group you are choosing to align with (women vs. the unborn, religious people vs. same sex couples).

Victim Suffering Matters

Victims do deserve our attention, of course, and rightly so. Our culture privileges victims in large part because of the Christian revelation that God is on the side of victims. But the cultural crisis we are facing is that competition for the privileges of being a victim (I know how odd that sounds!) has escalated to ridiculous extremes. The biggest loser is now the biggest winner – reality TV come home to roost. Donald Trump has campaigned as a champion of victims and now he is positioning himself to be a victim of voter fraud and manipulation if he should lose the election. What a feather that will be in his victim-cap!

Let me make something very clear: I’m NOT saying that victims have no claim on the body politic. They most certainly do. No matter the victim group that captures your advocacy, all claims of victimization need to be taken seriously. Racism, misogyny, gender bias and violence are real. Economic suffering and the loss of a sense of belonging are all real.

But this is not what our current crisis is about. It’s not that there are more victims than ever, or more extreme suffering or that the problems are unsolvable. No, the reason we are in crisis is that we are losing our ability to give credence to anyone’s suffering but our own. We have fallen into a destructive pattern of minimizing, even ridiculing, another’s suffering in order to privilege our own. This is special interest politics at its worst.

3 Things To Talk About With Our Kids

Before we get to the Dos of how to talk about this with our kids, let me offer one don’t – please don’t say in front of your children that you can’t understand someone else’s position. To say, “I just don’t understand how someone could hold that position” is a backhanded way of saying they are not quite human. We are all capable of understanding another’s perspective. If we haven’t been able to yet, perhaps we should try harder.

So here are 3 questions you can use to open up a conversation with your children about this cultural crisis that doesn’t dig us deeper into a hole.

A good place to begin is with the advice of the angels: Be not afraid. The angels are the messengers of God, communicating God’s desires to us. They rightly counsel us to put aside our fear so that we will be open to God’s presence in the midst of our human experience. Talk with your children about what frightens them. As a family, discuss how being afraid closes you off from God’s presence and relationships with others. How can we learn to listen for God and listen to others when we are afraid?

Explore what it means to be great in God’s kingdom. You can tell your children that Jesus’ disciples thought greatness meant victory in a fight against Rome or being Jesus’ favorite. But they were wrong. For Jesus greatness is all about being an instrument of God’s love in the world so that no one feels abandoned or excluded. How can our family be an instrument of God’s love now and after the election?

Please talk with your children about forgiveness, but remember: Jesus revealed that before we forgive we must be forgiven. Forgiveness is first of all something we receive unbidden and undeserved from God. It awakens us to the possibility that we might have needed to be forgiven for something without realizing it. So rather than blaming others for being obstacles to civility or being insensitive to the suffering of others, you can ask, How can we find humility as we work together to serve God and others?

And remember, when talking about the election with your children, or anyone else for that matter, please don’t speak out of anger, hatred, or disgust. What defiles our nation is not what goes into your mouth, but what comes out of it.

Image: Wikimedia Commons photo by the U.S. Army. Public Domain.

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