Ben and Barack

I am a self-professing social studies geek, so during the inauguration I felt the need to impress upon my children the importance of the day. I wanted them to marvel at the peaceful transfer of power, to question why our president isn't elected by a direct democracy but by our weird electoral college, and to understand the magnitude of the job of defending our country, protecting our Constitution, etc, etc. But alas, my children are 2, 4, and 6. Personally, I think they are brilliant, but they are still 2, 4, and 6.

So I decided that I would try to impress on Ben and Will the significance of Barack Obama. Not the political significance, but the historical significance. I started to explain to them how in our country's past people didn't treat African-Americans very nicely, how they weren't allowed to eat in restaurants or vote in elections. To this, Ben said, "But I thought we aren't supposed to treat others differently because of their skin." Exactly, Ben, but sometimes people don't do what they are supposed to do. I told them that since Obama was elected to be our president, it showed how far our country has come in treating people more fairly. I talked about judging people not by the color of their skin, "but by the content of their character". Ben, who never looked up from his transformers during this exchange, then said (in a flat tone and with complete boredom in his voice), "How comforting." I think he got the point, but let's face it, transformers are more fun than history to him. So much for my civics lesson. Oh, well:)