My daughters are spending the weekend with me this weekend. They're nine and ten. I love them more than anything. Let's call them Agent Pokemon (my older child) and Plays Well With Others (my younger one), okay?
When they arrived, I was foaming at the mouth about Hillary Clinton's latest... I don't know what to call it. Garbage? Idiocy? Premeditated jackassery? Anyway, I was pretty riled, and ranting to my partner when they got here.
Agent Pokemon didn't know who Barack was, but she knew Hillary Clinton's name, because my ex had voted for her in the primaries a few months ago. I told her who Barack Obama was and tried to summarize what Clinton had said today. Agent Pokemon didn't really understand why I was angry, but she also isn't really interested in politics.
Plays Well With Others surprised me, however. More after the jump.
As Plays Well With Others and I were preparing dinner, while Agent Pokemon and my partner were playing video games together, we were talking about the election. Plays Well With Others told me that she wanted "the black man" to win. I asked her if she knew his name, and when she didn't, I told her and she repeated it a few times, making sure she could pronounce it.
I asked her why she wanted him to win, and she said "I don't like Hillary Clinton. She's mean. And she says mean things about people. She's like a bully."
I asked her if she'd like to see the important speech Barack Obama made (A More Perfect Union), and she said she would. So once dinner was ready, we came into my office and watched the entire speech. She was raptly glued to the screen the entire time. (Did I mention she's nine years old? Her attention span is amazing.)
When it was over, I asked her if she had liked it. She said "My head is full of thoughts right now." I smiled and asked her what some of those thoughts were, and she said "I hope he gets to be President. He wants everybody to work together and make things better, instead of getting angry because things are bad."
Then she hugged me and went to put her dishes in the dishwasher. I just sat here, almost stunned at the simplicity and rightness of her statement.
Barack Obama wants everybody to work together and make things better, instead of getting angry because things are bad.
How perfect is that?