This Just In – Sometimes, it’s the little things … delivered by the littlest people.
In this case, not just a little thing, but a little thing spoken in the little bitty gentle voice of my two-year-old grandson, Elvie.
Earlier this week, we were sitting together snuggled up in my recliner and I was trying to change screens on my phone within an app called Garage Band. It’s a fun app that lets you play any instrument and record tracks by just tapping your finger on the screen. For those of us in the musically challenged category, it’s all the fun of having drums and none of the expense.
I wasn’t having much success in achieving my objective (getting to the drums) and I started to state my frustration. “Hmmm … that’s not working. Oh my goodness, that wasn’t it …”
Then came the gentle touch of my sweet grandson. His right hand slowly patted my left arm. Quietly, sweetly he said, “We’re making progress.”
Let me pause here to cite all due credit to my son and daughter-in-law for how this sweet turn of phrase came about. When young children face a lack of immediate success in their effort to advance in a game or making cookies, they have to learn that when you try things, you can face frustration and setbacks, but you have to stay calm, stick with it and you’ll get there. Trying and failing and trying again wires the brain to learn our own way of doing something, whether it’s drinking milk from a cup or working an app on a smartphone.
I’ve seen Brian and Jamie articulate this to their kids too many times to count. It’s rote. “Thank you for staying calm. You’ve been very patient. Wow, you kept trying and you did it!”
My brain knows this (and we grandparents certainly reinforce this whenever we get the chance) but hearing this reassurance boomerang back from the tiny voice of a two-year-old will bring you to the brink.
It hit me right between the eyes that this is the voice of our future, reminding me on every level to step back and realize than on so many, many levels … we’re making progress.
With a firehose of political news blasting at us at a level that we cannot absorb (which for some is the goal) it is impossible to pick out which astonishing development in the last two weeks to single out as the most holy mackerel thing to examine. I choose this:
The New York Times reported this week that when former White House Counsel Patrick Philbin told the former president in June that some of the many documents that he had brought to Mar-A-Lago had to be returned to the government as they now belong to the National Archives, Trump responded “It’s not theirs, it’s mine.”
He admits it. He withheld these documents and had one of his lawyers declare in writing that he’d given everything back.
Fact check: If Trump wrote his lunch order on a sticky note while in the Oval Office, that sticky note doesn’t belong to him. It belongs to the Federal Government and now, to the National Archives. It belongs to the American people.
Burger, Fries, Diet Coke. If he scribbled it while president, it’s not his.
I come back to my two-year-old grandson, whose emotional maturity and capacity for empathy has already well exceeded that of the 45th president. A common transaction is that of you-had-your-turn-now-it’s-his-turn. Again, this is a daily conversation and now the kids negotiate it themselves. They’re four and two and they’ve internalized this. When your turn is over, you hand over the toy and move on. No pushing, no shoving, no whining.
The peaceful transition of Legos.
The former president does not accept these simple childhood rules … possibly because he’s never heard of them, certainly because he has never, ever in his entire life, been held to the accountability standard heard in every preschool classroom daily: “Give that back, it’s not yours.”
Like a preschool teacher who has asked, cautioned about consequences and must finally execute the enforcement of rules, the FBI simply entered Trump’s home and regained custody of the remaining documents he illegally removed from the White House.
Meanwhile, his successor had one of the most stunningly successful weeks in the history of presidential politics.
We’re making progress.
Jean Bolduc is a freelance writer and the host of the Weekend Watercooler on 97.9 The Hill. She is the author of “African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History” (History Press, 2016) and has served on Orange County’s Human Relations Commission, The Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina, the Orange County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, and the Orange County Schools’ Equity Task Force. She was a featured columnist and reporter for the Chapel Hill Herald and the News & Observer.
Readers can reach Jean via email – jean@penandinc.com and via Twitter @JeanBolduc
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