On Thanksgiving the family sat around our table, toasted our collective health and happiness, and took turns saying what we were thankful for.
“I’m thankful that I can read,” said our six-year old, Abby.
She just started Junie B Jones, her
first chapter book, and she never rarely misses an opportunity to show off a little.
“I’m thankful for the moon,” said her younger brother, Noah.
He’s recently developed an obsessive interest in outer-space.
“Good one,” said Natalie, my mother-in-law. “I’m thankful
that none of our freedoms have been taken away, and that we can all sit here today
and enjoy this lovely meal together with friends and family.”
Monty and I exchanged a look, a silent agreement to ignore
the part about our freedoms “being taken away,” and to simply be gracious. But later, after dinner was over and people
were watching television, a Ben Carson ad came on.
“I have to say,” Natalie said, after Carson ’s ad had played. “There’s something
very likable about him. I think he makes sense.”
“Mom, no.” Monty’s voice had that overly-patient edge to it,
like a dog-owner reprimanding his frisky puppy. So while I totally agreed with
Monty philosophically, I couldn’t blame Natalie for her testy response.
“What do you mean, ‘no’? I’m not incompetent. I can pick my
own candidate.”
Jack, Monty’s brother, busied himself by starting a tickle
war with all the kids. I began straightening up. But Monty, who is never
afraid of conflict, turned toward his mother and stared her down. “Ben Carson
may seem rational, but he’s not. He’s compared Obamacare to slavery, and gun
control to Nazi Germany. He thinks Muslims shouldn’t be allowed to be
president, and that we ought to have separate, transgender bathrooms.”
Since Natalie is actually the one who taught Monty to
embrace conflict, she scoffed and spoke over the frantic giggles of the
children. “That’s ridiculous.”
“I know!” Monty grinned, obviously happy that his mother
agreed with him.
“Women already have to stand in line far too long to use the
toilet. If we’re going to build more bathrooms, we should just double the amount for
females. Creating separate ones for these transgenders is a waste of
resources.”
“Yeah, that’s a good point,” I interjected. “I mean… the
part about more public restrooms for women.”
Monty shot me a squinty, exasperated look. After years of
marriage, I knew exactly what it meant. Now was the time I was supposed to
speak up and support him. I should convince his mother that she should
absolutely not support Ben Carson.
But I went through this three years ago, when Natalie stayed
with us during the 2012 election and Monty was working half a world away.
During that time, she and I argued about Mitt Romney, and you know what it got
me? A massive headache and mild digestive trouble.
“Thank you,” Natalie said to me, as if I’d just endorsed her
own candidacy in the Iowa
caucus. She turned back to her son. “You can’t take a few quotes out of context
and let that define the man.”
“And you can’t take a 30 second campaign ad about ‘thinking
outside the box’ and decide that he knows what he’s talking about.”
“I’m not! But the caucus is coming up soon, and so far, none
of the candidates have impressed me. I might just pick the least offensive
one.”
This leads me to what I’m thankful for. Of course there’s a
long list: my family, my health, the ability to learn, the opportunity to
teach, sunsets, Oreo cookies and lemon zinger tea while watching Scandal, and the fact that in a little
over two months, the Iowa caucus will be over.
A lot of people envy Iowa
for our unfair advantage in picking presidential candidates. Well, don’t. Even though I teach a class called 20th Century American Politics, I still get tired from all the competing voices. And then
there’s the prospect of guilt. What if we choose the wrong guy? The whole
country could blame us for setting that bandwagon in motion.
As for me, the democratic side of things seems pretty much
sewn up (despite Monty's Bernie Sanders bumper sticker) But the republicans are still up in the air, with a lot of people undecided.
Natalie is one of those people.
Monty remains convinced that he can get her to vote Democrat,
but when Natalie was his age she voted for Reagan. He was her first republican,
and since then, she’s declared herself an independent.
“Who wants pie?” I asked.
Everyone but Monty and Natalie clambered upstairs, to pick
between caramel apple and pumpkin, and by the time we returned to the TV room,
their argument was over. Soon it was dark outside, people went home, and we all
fell into a food coma.
The next day we did our Black Friday shopping, ate turkey
sandwiches for lunch, and found ourselves speechless at the news reports of yet
another Colorado
shooting, this one at a Planned Parenthood.
“And mom thinks her freedom hasn’t been taken away,” Monty
said later, when the kids weren’t in ear shot. “I think we need to redefine
what freedom is, since we live in a country where shootings have become the new
normal.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But if we can't do that, maybe we just need to rethink what we're thankful for.”
