Children, Try to Get Along, OK?

SECOND GRADE TEACHER TO DONNIE AND LITTLE ELON: IF YOU CAN’T BE KIND, BE QUIET. AND A FEW OTHER APPROPRIATE ADMONITIONS

Photo by Austin Pacheco on Unsplash

No offense to Mrs. Trump and Mrs. Musk, but some things just didn’t get through to your little boys.

Having raised three children who survived into adulthood without causing bodily harm to one another, or humankind in general, I know what’s possible. One of mine is actually retired now, and he still hasn’t shouted obscenities at former friends (or caused the deaths of thousands of poor children for that matter.)

In the interest of world peace, I’d like to remind Little Donnie and Little Elon about a few things that surely their mamas tried to teach them.

Such as: You never look good trying to make someone else look bad. We grown-ups are getting really tired of you trying to out-badmouth each other. Most of us had second grade teachers — didn’t you? — who taught us that insults are only used by small people.

My second grade teacher Miss Fretwell (I’m not making this up, that was her name) had a list of adages always at the ready. One offense and you’d be copying the appropriate sentence fifty times. So, Donald and Elon, if you didn’t get these messages from your moms, I would like to pass along a few lines from Miss Fretwell:

People with dirty hands point fingers.

A narrow mind usually goes along with a wide mouth.

None are so empty as those full of themselves.

And emphatically:

It’s okay to be angry; it’s never okay to be cruel.

Finally, to get back to that name-calling and finger-pointing, National No-Name-Calling Week was celebrated the third week of January; maybe you weren’t paying attention. Miss Fretwell would have loved No-Name-Calling Week.

Miss Fretwell would have had Donald and Elon at the blackboard, writing a few of the above. Or perhaps, Be Kind. Or even yet,

If you can’t be kind, be quiet.

On a personal note, as if this entire ramble weren’t personal notes, my birthday is June 8, which a friend just texted is National Loving Day this year. Actually, he was a few days off, but I’ll take it. (Bob Liner says he has moved the celebration four days over from the 12th.) It’s also Pentecost, the day we Christians celebrate the descent of the Holy Spirit, which has seemed in short supply lately. Let’s take love and the spirit of peace wherever they can be found.

Be kind

This essay also appears on my Substack, The Optimistic Eye, where I regularly post observations on the political scene (which I try to limit here on dear old WordPress. C’mon over any time; it’s free.