Friday evening before my Clone Wars and Popcorn date with my four year old son I was reading my stories, on the computer. And by "stories" I mean "the news".
My son, J, thumped around the house like he does, leaping from things as he flew his Lego creations around the house wearing last year's Halloween costume, a Batman cape. The sensory experience of his presence is a persistent sound and shaking of the house THUMP-THUMP...THUMP-THUMP...THUMP.............THUMP THUMP................ THUMP THUMPTHUMPTHUMP ..........THUMP THUMP.... THUMP
The thumping stopped and I felt his head on my shoulder. He stared at my computer screen for a while. Under his breath I heard "g....guh..."
"Daddy," he said "why does that say 'goop'?"
"Goop? Where?"
"You know! THERE!" He pointed at the screen at the acronym GOP.
"AH! That wouldn't be 'goop'" I said "how many O's does it have?"
"One......." he whispered sounds for a moment and said "gop...daddy, what's a gop?" (pronounced gahp)
"Gop! Right!" celebrating his success...he's had new bursts of understanding with reading lately. I'm proud. "But you know what? It's not really a word. There's no gop. It's all in capital letters, so it's pronounced G-O-P. That's called an acronym. It stands for
GGGGrand
OOOOld
PPPParty.
It means Republicans."
"OoooooOOOOooooo" Now starting to spin in a circle watching his cape fly up "like Jooohn MMMcCane!"
"Exactly."
"Not like Barrrrack Obbbama."
"Right."
He stood behind me and spun and hummed a high, twittering little tune for a while as I continued to read.
Finally
"Daddy...are Re-publicans BAD GUYS?" My son J stood there with one hand on his hip and the other held in a fist, like he was ready to fight the GOP single handedly with big, colorful words like POW! BIFF! and BLAMMO! In my usual play-time role I'd be the one stuck saying "Holy OxyContin, Batman! The Limbaughler is getting away!"
The question gave me pause. I barely managed to suppress my usual blurted, snarky one liner. Crap. What do I say?
"Well... our friends XXXXXX and XXXX are Republicans. And XXXXXX is a Republican too. Aaaand so is XXXXXX and XXXXXX. Do you think they're bad guys?"
Looking at himself make Batman poses in the mirror he absently said "No." Then he turned around, "But why are they Re-publicans?"
I grinned, a little terrified (careful old man, whatever you say will be repeated to our friends and family via four-year-old-ma-phone)
"Well...I think a lot of people want to lie to us because they like money, like businesses and sometimes some leaders who should be protecting us. And some people believe the wrong people and think the lies are true. Some Republican leaders say things that scare people. I think XXXX and XXXX are scared that Democrats like Obama will take things away from them and make them follow a bunch of rules they don't like. But that's not right. Democrats want to make things fair."
"But daddy....." now blowing spit bubbles behind my back (gross) "...daddy.........." He sighed "daddy....I think I'm kinda thirsty."
"Well...boy, you know where the cups are."
He sighed again "Okay."
I kept reading to the background sound of cupboards slapping closed and plastic cups bouncing around the floor. After the harrowing odyssey that is pouring a cup of apple juice, J had an epiphany.
"I KNOW!!!" He shouted, excited "Let's TELL XXXXX and XXXXX that Barrrrack Obbbama will fix the things and make things fair and that Barrrrack Obbbama won't take things from them, and THEN they won't be SCARED! Yeah! Let's do that!"