A Letter to My Daughter, Aged Almost-Eight, Upon the Occasion of This Presidential Election

A,

I’m writing to you now even though you’re in the next room, headlamp ablaze, reading your book though bedtime has come and gone and you’re supposed to be asleep. You’re cute in there. I just peeked at you.

I’m writing to you now because we, your mom and I, just talked with your teacher today for your 2nd grade conference. She told us how well you’re doing. How much you read in class. How much you like math. How kind you are to the other students and to her. How you follow directions so earnestly, with your wide, solemn eyes and your always-already smile.

I’m writing to you now because our country just elected a man so unfit for office into the White House that to put something so silly into a novel draft would have once caused any editor worth their salt to complain about believability.

I’m writing to you now because that man, that selfsame bully, was elected into office for the first time 8 years ago, on a night when you were looming large in your mom’s belly and larger in our minds. We, your mom and I, went for walk after walk that night, her driven to it by your inter-womb moving and grooving, both of us driven to it by the story of the election coverage on the TV. You held out for another 10 days after election night 2016, content to wait out the furor for as long as possible.

I’m writing to you now because yesterday you asked us who we voted for, and after we told you, you went quiet. I wondered if you were thinking of those kids on your bus who talk about that man, that felon, whose name is on hats and tshirts and bumper stickers and golf courses and legal documents.

I’m writing to you now because today, when you asked how long presidents get to be in the White House, I said four years and to you, mighty in your almost-eightness, four years is a majority of your life. A slight majority really. 50.15% or so. The kind of percentage that can win a swing state. Significant.

You’re asleep by now, I think. I heard you click off your light a minute ago, and your room is quiet now.

In these next four years, you’ll get to see much and understand more.

You will know what it is to be governed by small, weak men. You will see bullying granted the authority of the presidential seal. You will see meanness lofted high by government power. You will watch enemies of allies made, boogeymen of immigrants made. You will see praise of the strongman instead of strength.

You will know the lust for money, the drive of it, the hook and hold of it.

You will watch as ignorance is gilded and stupidity turned virtuous. You will see science discarded and experts offered contempt. You will wonder where the polysyllabic words went.

You will see our highest office once more filled with noise and bile, once more made nasty, brutish, and not short enough.

In the midst of all of this, you, my sweet, my little reader, my kind person, my honest child, my good listener, my wonder seeker, my curious girl, my good, good friend—in the midst of this, you will ask. Some cold Saturday morning in winter while we three sit near the fire with our books, you will ask. Some afternoon, after leaping from the school bus and racing inside, bag bouncing against your back, you will ask. You will look up from your art and ask. You will pause while we are out on a walk and ask. You will turn to me after the 8th inning, the Twins once again having blown a lead thanks to our struggling relief pitching, and ask.

Maybe you’ll ask how this happened. Or why it happened.
Maybe you’ll ask why he talks that way, why he acts that way.

And when this happens, we, your mom and I, will say what we can. We will find teachable moments. We will show you what it is to fight for a cause. To fight a losing fight because it’s right. To speak with integrity and act with kindness. To have hope and to have joy. To cultivate them, grow them in the garden that is you.

And we will say, I hope, what has always been true: that it doesn’t have to be this way.