Thursday, April 23, 2009

Little Boys and Presidents

As parents, My Smart Wife and I have been trying to teach our son one very important lesson his entire life. He's pretty tired of hearing about it by now, we're sure.

Most Important Lesson #1: Actions have consequences.

We've talked and reasoned and sometimes snapped and barked about this for fourteen years. Everything you do, we've tried to teach him, has a repercussion - for good or bad. So be careful what you do and think about your actions carefully before you make them. If circumstances force you to act quickly, then make sure you think about that act afterwards - especially if the results were negative.

Simple request for President Obama: Don't make us liars to our son.

As parents, we've fought eight years against the example of a President who believed there were no consequences to actions, supported by a Congress of both parties that allowed him to believe this.

It wasn't easy. Not when President Bush would do something so transparently wrong that our then nine year-old boy could look at us and ask, "Why is he doing that? Why doesn't someone tell him this is wrong?" Often but not always unspoken was the follow-up question: "Why isn't there a consequence to his actions?"

Little boys and Presidents both need to know that there are consequences to actions.

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