My daughter will be 9 years old on Friday. Tonight she wanted to hear Mr. Obama speak. So, she sat with her father and I and listened raptly to the entire 1/2 hour campaign ad. With Tivo, we could pause when she asked questions such as, "what's an investment?" or "what's a foreclosure?" I knew it was great teaching opportunity and was happy to use the occasion this way. What I didn't expect was how Obama would raise her respect for her parents along the way.
How did the do that? Well, yeah, you have to follow me over the jump....
To put tonight's experience in context, please let me reminisce a bit:
Nine Halloweens ago I frightened all the neighborhood children as I was in labor while giving out candy. Okay, actually everybody was excited, but I did hand out treats when contractions were just two minutes apart. It was a very lucky and relatively easy labor and birth at home. She was a week early and none of the names we had been considering seemed to fit. So, we didn't name her for three weeks. It was only natural that her grandmother suggest we call her Pumpkin, in the meantime. That, of course, morphed into all kinds of derivative pet names such as Punkin, and just Punk. One that I had for her was Punkerdoodle.
Even as an infant, she had a strong sense of her own will. She like for me to sing to her and would make me sing for what seemed like hours sometimes. I began to make up songs such as, "She's a Punkerdoodle Noodle, who doesn't have a poodle, but she's still oodles of fun!" Part of me will always look at her and see that little infant who could so clearly let you know what she wanted.
That didn't change of course. And one thing she has been clear about wanting is to be home-schooled. She has consistently stated that she likes her school, likes her friends in school, likes her teachers. That she likes to learn, but she doesn't like people to tell her when to learn. She could articulate this in just that way since she was 6 years old. For four years, I have explained to her why we have in her school. Yes, she can learn things at home, but she needs to learn how to be with other people, how to work with other people and the value of teamwork. We talk about it all the time. She resists homework every day and she is grumpy with her dad every morning as he tries to get her to school on time.
Tonight, though, while listening to Barack Obama, she gave our perspective some fresh consideration. She admires him. She loves to hear him speak. He is inspirational to her. She feels with great certainty that he will be a great president. So, when he called on parents to do their part, to be responsible, by making sure that kids got to school on time and did their homework, she look at each of us turn with a renewed respect and appreciation for our efforts. If Barack Obama says this is an important role for parents to do, that seals the deal for her. She said, "You do that for me. You're good parents." I was brought to tears.
Now, my daughter loves us. There is no doubt. She's very expressive and affectionate and she tells me all the time that she thinks I'm a good mother. It's a different quality of appreciation, though, when someone she sees as a leader of this country - a job that she probably can't imagine having any superiors - affirms something about her parents that she hadn't previously appreciate. Her eyes were full of sparkle and her breathing was deep. She was taking it in. I'm not sure anyone else could have evoked this response. There hasn't been a leader on the scene since her birth who was even trying.
So, tonight, as a parent, I sit with a profound debt of gratitude to Barack Obama. Thank you. I look forward to at least four more years of your influence on my daughter and all the children of our nation.