Time to send better messages to our children

I listened to Sarah Huckabee Sanders begin her press conference on Wednesday speaking about her role as a working mother in the White House, the honor it is for her to support Donald Trump and the message she hopes she is sending to her daughter Scarlett and other children. So, consider the “message.” Huckabee Sanders defends a president who, this week alone, has mercilessly bullied his attorney general, dishonored the dignity of his office by delivering an inappropriately partisan speech to the Boy Scouts of America while encouraging the audience to boo his predecessor, announced a transgender ban for the military and ignored the necessity of advancing policy responses to the ominous signs of both North Korea and China flexing their military might. Late Wednesday, the president welcomed Boys’ and Girls’ State par- ticipants to the White House. As always, he had to recall his great election victory and engage in the all- too- familiar question- and- answer routine geared to assure the approving applause he craves.

A former teacher and proud mother of a son who attended a Boy’s State program two decades ago, I fail to understand the message that Huckabee Sanders hopes to communicate to her daughter. That bullying is acceptable? That mocking those public servants who have honorably served the country is likewise acceptable? That there is merit in discriminating against others because of gender identity when they choose to serve their country? That constantly seeking self- aggrandizement and public adulation casts one as a role model? I know the demands on working mothers — I was a working mother. Still, what we mothers do in the workplace does impact our children, and I’ll be curious to know how Scarlett, when grown, will view her mother’s role in propping up a president whose message and tone depart so strikingly from all previous occupants of the White House.