I recently made the difficult decision to send my daughter to a counselor. At her first session, she was so overcome with emotion that she could barely string together a few sentences. How did we get to this point?
Last November, my daughter and I were featured in a video in which we cooked a traditional Syrian holiday meal during Thanksgiving. While many people shared warm and encouraging comments, some comments left us flabbergasted: “This is exactly why Trump wants to get rid of all these minority traitors. GO HOME.” Knowing that somebody watched my beautiful daughter cook with her mother and felt inspired to spew out hateful rhetoric in response was deeply disheartening.
Protecting our children is the most fundamental parental instinct. When our children fall, we pick them up and kiss their scrapes. When they encounter a bully on the playground, our blood boils as we restrain our desire to run to their rescue. So what are parents to do when the bully is our own president who continues to divide our country and encourage xenophobia?
Van Jones of CNN encapsulated the nightmare of a Trump presidency best on election night when he said, “It’s hard to be a parent tonight for a lot of us. You tell your kids, ‘Don’t be a bully.’ You tell your kids, ‘Don’t be a bigot.’ You tell your kids, ‘Do your homework and be prepared.’ And then you have this outcome, and you have people putting children to bed tonight, and they’re afraid of breakfast. They’re afraid of ‘How do I… [Read more…] about My daughter is one of countless children who live in fear since Trump came into power
