Protecting Our Kids From Obama's Subversive 'Eat Your Peas' Message

I just received a forlorn message from my cousin in Dallas, where right-thinking citizens are pushing back against the plot to poison our children's minds with a message from our president. Specifically, that they ought to stay in school and apply themselves, keep their pencils sharpened and eat fresh fruit. In response, many parents have decided that the surest way to keep their kids from hearing about the importance of staying in school is to . . . keep them home from school. In this, they are doubtless correct.


My cousin, Julie Henneberger Patton, a lawyer and stay-at-home mom of four, writes about how confused she is at having missed the memo that might have helped her make sense of the risk involved in exposing her kids to such subversive ideas – from the squarest president since Nixon: "I just had to sign three permission slips to let my children see the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES on TV,'' next Tuesday, when President Obama is scheduled to deliver a "hard work pays off'' message in schools. "I love our government, and I can't believe that 15 minutes of our nation's leader sending a message to our children is a terrible, horrible thing.''

Believe it, Julie. After all, what's to stop him from luring unsuspecting students in with a bracing and delightful speech about doing their homework – and then switching things up at the last minute with mentions of climate change, or even the public option? As your fellow Texan Brett Curtiss told the New York Times, "The thing that concerned me most about it was it seemed like a direct channel from the president of the United States into the classroom, to my child." Curtiss, an engineer from the Houston suburb of Pearland, said he planned to keep his three children home on Tuesday. "I don't want our schools turned over to some socialist movement."

Cousin, does it make you feel better or worse that the fear of Obama's message is in no way limited to your home state? In Florida, Jim Greer, chairman of that state's Republican Party, has issued this warning: "As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist ideology. The idea that school children across our nation will be forced to watch the president justify his plans for government-run health care, banks, and automobile companies, increasing taxes on those who create jobs, and racking up more debt than any other president, is not only infuriating, but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power.'' In Maryland, where I live, school officials in Loudon and Charles Counties have decided not to show the prez at all.

Please oh please could someone explain this to my cousin and me? (Until you get back to us, she says her short-term solution is Project Runway and a glass of vino.) I don't want to think this is about race, or even rank partisanship, but the latter seems undeniable. Friday's Washington Post notes that when George H.W. Bush – that's Poppy to you – gave a nationally televised school speech on the same dull topics in 1991, Democrats in Congress groused, too, though there was no mention of parent protests or boycotts.

Does absolutely everything have to be viewed through a partisan lens? Even if Obama were to be so foolish as to try and pitch his ideas on fiscal policy to fifth-graders – which would turn them into Republicans for sure – do we really want our kids sheltered from ideas with which they may disagree? How are they to stand up to opposing views if they haven't even heard them?

It wasn't always this way: I have a vague, ancient memory of Sister Theodosia taking us into the music room to watch the only TV in St. Mary's School because Hubert Humphrey was talking about something or other, I forget what. I do recall that she made clear that she was not a fan of HHH – but even the woman who railed against the immodesty of sleeveless shifts knew that healthy academic inquiry involves taking in a variety of opinions with which we are perfectly free to disagree.

In fact, since Tuesday's planned topic is personal responsibility, I don't know why those who dislike Obama wouldn't be eager to let him be the one to spoon up the medicine, which will be a turn-off to many tender minds. And did I cover my kids' ears during the Bush years? No way; how else was my son to perfect his Jon Stewart imitation?