DEAR MR. TRUMP,
As you might have guessed, we’re up to our elbows here in back-to-school stuff, carpools, dirty laundry, meal time, bed time, sibling rivalry fight time, prayer time and limits on screen time. And frankly, sir, you’ve become more than a mother’s worst nightmare.
Why do I and countless other mothers know that? Simple. You’re teaching the kids to do exactly what we’ve been teaching them NOT to do for their entire little lives. Yes, you’ve been undoing the parenting, from your house to ours.
We taught our children to embrace others with respect, regardless of their skin color, ethnicity or faith. You teach them the opposite. You tell them it’s okay to demonize those who look or pray differently. We shake our heads in disbelief when you say that just because of a person’s ethnicity, they are not qualified to do a job, as you did with Judge Curiel. We cringe when you suggest a ban on all Muslims trying to enter our country, simply because of their religion.
We’ve taught our kids that what matters most is how someone behaves, not how they look. We taught our children to be compassionate and caring to those with disabilities. You taught them to mock these same people. You taught them to put down women, especially those who don’t measure up to your standards of beauty.
We taught our children that they’ll be judged by who they hang out with. You taught them that it’s okay to retweet messages from neo-Nazis and spend a lot of time with those known as white supremacists.
And just as bad, you are teaching our children that bullying is okay. In contrast, across America anti-bullying campaigns in schools have been teaching kids not to bully others. In fact, if our children stirred up the fear, hate and aggression on the playground that you do at your rallies, you’d better believe they’d be shut down, and fast. And worse you even encourage people to beat up those who disagree with you by promising to pay their legal fees if they are sued or arrested.
We could go on, but let us finish with one more thing: Gratitude. We teach our children to be grateful when someone does something nice for them. Very, very grateful when someone does something really big for them, and even more appreciative when someone does something truly heroic for them, such as serve in our armed forces. Yet when we look at your words, your behavior, we see the opposite of gratitude. The most recent example being your belittling of the Khan family whose son made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation.
As President, you would be more than the head of our federal government, you would be a role model for children. You would set a tone based on your words and conduct of what our kids should emulate. I shudder to think of a nation where a generation of our children are taught that sexism, racism, bigotry, mocking the disabled and worse is acceptable because our President is doing just that.
If you were any of our children we would give you a time out and then try to explain why compassion and tolerance is important to being not just a good American but to being a good human being. But you, sir, are 70 years old. I doubt there’s anything anyone can say that could persuade you to change your ways.
The only option for us mothers is to tell our children to not follow your example. And just as importantly, for us mothers to vote against you – not only for us as women, but for the good of our children and their future.