1/20/09

out of the mouthes of babes

Almost two years ago my son (3 at the time) was watching TV with me. It was the news of course, I'm a news junkie. We were watching Barack Obama announce his run for the presidency. My son looked at me and said - "the president?" and I said no, just a man who wants the job. The little dude was adamant that he was the president. I let it go- he was 3.

Time went on (because this was THE longest campaign) and he got older, and realized that Obama wasn't the President- Yet. I was a fan of Hillary so I know he didn't get it this air of inevitability from me. Time went on, Hillary lost, McCain picked that creature to run with him, and my son was still convinced. I tried to explain to him that everyone would vote, and that the winner might not be who he wanted. That kind of goes over the head of a 4 year old.

Well, you know how the election turned out. Today we watched the inauguration. He watched from 8 am to 12.30pm. He stood when they told the crowd to stand. He called me in to hold his hands when Biden and Obama took their oaths. He didn't ask once for me to change to a "kid"show.

He was right all along. He doesn't understand the importance of today for so many, many people. He doesn't understand that people fought and died for this man to take office today. He just understands that "he's a good man, with good ideas".

Let's hope that President Obama keeps those two qualities for the next 4 years.

2 comments:

scb said...

Oh wow. I have tears running down my cheeks as I did so many times during the Inauguration ceremony yesterday. I'm so glad your son was right all along!

drwende said...

It'll be interesting to find out later what your son understood. I dimly remember political news from when I was his age -- but it's weird what I took for granted due to lack of anything to compare events to.