My Two Cents

I'm baffled by all the fuss over President Obama's speech to the children of America today. Seriously. My children sure as hell went to school today and listened to that speech, and here's why: HE'S THE PRESIDENT OF OUR COUNTRY! Now, to be fair, I didn't vote for the guy. I don't think he's done anything (yet?) to deserve the "savior" status his fans have given him (and he seems OK with claiming -- or at least tolerating) . I don't think our country is any better off now because of the "change" he went on and on about during the campaign. Maybe we haven't seen his best tricks yet. At the end of the day, that's not what this is about. He is our leader, like it our not. That's the beauty of democracy -- we all get our say. Some of us are always going to pleased with who wins and the rest are not. But when all is said and done, ideally, we pull together and make the best of what we got. Like him or not, we (the voting public) have entrusted him with a huge responsibility. The task of making this great country of ours the best it can be. My children attend fabulous schools. PUBLIC schools. FOR FREE! If the President of the United States wants them to sit for ten minutes and listen to a message he has prepared, they're darn well gonna' sit and listen. Because we respect our leaders. "But what if we don't agree with what he has to say?" "What if he's brainwashing our children to be the good little socialists he knows they can be?" I've read all the crap. Guess what! It's our responsibility as PARENTS to watch the speech ourselves and . . . here's the kicker . . . TALK ABOUT IT with our children. Here's what my youngest child remembered of it: "It was BOOOOORRRRRING!!! There was a story about a awesome guy, but I don't remember what he did." Sounds like whatever devious scheme the President may have had really worked well. I'm offended on the President's behalf that we don't trust him to speak to our kids. That we raised such a ruckus about all this that he had to publish his speech ahead of time for our approval. It's a little ridiculous to me. Whatever. America is all about Freedom -- freedom to choose what we want our children to be exposed to, I guess. I just feel like there's a lot of misplaced anger here. Why don't we, the parents of America's youth, band together and take on MTV, the entire entertainment industry, or media in general for brainwashing our precious children into being sex- obsessed, disrespectful punks?! Anyone in? OK, thanks for listening. Soapbox being put away now.