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3 years ago
This is fantastic, Connie Sue! Having been born in the late '50's, I can relate to a lot of your family "values". I agree with everything you've said. Thank you for sharing! 
"Stand By Your Man!" Even When It's the Unpopular Choice
I remember the day quite well..
It was a mid-March snowy morning and I abruptly pushed my chair back from the table announcing to my family, "there has to be more to this than a virus." Hours later heads rolled, faces fell and puffs of hot breath pushed across the room as I boldly and proudly proclaimed that I was forever more a Trump Girl. It didn't take long before my Gen Y and Z children and my Canadian husband began the barrage of questions and insults before they even knew why I made my choice and why, despite ridicule and insult, I unwaveringly stand by my man.
I was born in the early 60's when the US was involved in a menagerie of tumultuous events. The Civil Rights movement was brewing, there was a war brewing in Vietnam complete with plenty of anti-war protests and of course the famous political assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy as well as the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr and Malcolm X. Times were ugly and people were in search of something that resembled peace.
The 70's ushered in my formative years of both public and private education.
It also ushered in the "Age of Aquarius" and the Hippy movement. There was an economic struggle and technology made its debut. Change was upon us. The Me Decade was born and Americans were involved in cultural and political movements as a way of showing their individuality as much as showing their dissatisfaction with wars and politics. As they began to realize that they should "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country", everything from fashion to personal expression of self began to change. Everything was "groovy and far out"...except my parents.
My parents were grounded and settled and patriotic and proud. They instilled the same in myself and my 3 younger siblings. We were removed from public schools where desegregation was in full swing and enrolled in a prestigious private academy with "people like us." In school we stood facing the flag, said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning with our right hand placed over our heart and then sang one of many patriotic song selections. Directly following the song was a daily prayer recited in unison over our school's PA system, and it was always a prayer to God, Our Heavenly Father, or Our Lord. This was LIFE. This was what we did. It was expected, taught and practiced.
We attended religious school two evenings a week and church on Sunday. I grew up in a Southern, Judeo-Christian home where both religions were respected and practiced. Men in my family served in the military and the women were fussy housewives and mothers who ran carpools and attended coffee clatches. We ate dinner together at the table at 6pm nightly and only polite conversations about your day were discussed. Anything less was taboo and you were immediately asked to leave the table. We had manners, yes siree. We loved God, our family and our country. Those were the family cornerstones and those are the cornerstones that President Trump and the Republican Party have embodied.
Things took a bit of a change in 1983 when I married my college sweetheart and we began our new life in Fort Riley, Kansas. Suddenly I was thrust from being a naïve young woman, to being a military officer's wife and I began to see that my way of thinking was not the only way to think, and certainly not the most popular way to think. I quickly loosened the collar and began fitting in among my peers with eyes wide open. During my sometimes daily phone calls with my mother, I was frequently reminded of "who I was and where I came from" which is a Southern mother's way of saying "you've gone too far!" I pledged to not forget those things and decided that marrying my upbringing with my new life was the perfect solution to a sometimes uncomfortable situation. The good news is it worked for me!
Motherhood knocked on my door in late 1984 with the birth of my first child. I was the quintessential first time mother- worried, anxious and excited. In 1988, my second child was born and in 1993 our caboose joined our family. My husband and I carefully and prayerfully raised these children with the values and morals we held dear. Our children grew up to be respectful, educated and patriotic…or so we thought.
But something suddenly happened when they "flew the coop" and ventured out to the greener pastures of University. Something seriously happened. Whether they attended university in the US or in Canada, they all took a course in Philosophy and in this required course they were introduced to concepts and ideas that we never talked about or explored in our very typical American-Catholic home. Because of my background and my husband's very similar background, we stuck to the "how was your day," "what made you happy/sad today," type conversations and never really explored Roe vs. Wade or life after death or "Does God exist?" That was far-fetched, scary material for my very sheltered off spring. They were also, understandably, topics and classes my children never felt comfortable talking to me about. So they didn't. And there lies the problem. The gigantic, woolly mammoth of a problem, and today it STILL exists.
..when my family picked up their collective jaws and took a deep breath,
I remember hearing a growling, "wh-wh-wh-yyyyyyyy Mom?" And so I began to rehash the stories of my childhood, the ones that they knew oh-so-well. I told the sagas of being a military wife and family in hopes of touching some type of patriotic nerve in them, but there was nothing in return. Just a cold, hard, we-don't-get-it stare. I exited the room with President Trump and my country in my heart, my fist raised in solidarity with other fellow Americans who support our President, and pure determination to never relent.
I blame academia for my family's division. It's easy for me to hang that accolade on a wall that no longer exists. I blame my children for being so accepting of dogma that they knew was not in any way aligned to our core family and historical family beliefs. Why weren't they able to marry what they KNEW with what they learned? Why was the "right" way to think for them, so unconventional and foreign to me? Why was there a right and wrong or a left and right? Mostly, WHY couldn't we all just get along and accept each other's beliefs? This was and is still, so wrong on so many levels.
There is hope for the future. Our President has signed an Executive Order establishing the 1776 Commission, "establishing a national commission to promote patriotic education." President Trump has outlined this as a plan for educators to teach American history and to prepare our youth for the country's 250th anniversary of its founding. The President was quoted as saying "We want our sons and daughters to know they are citizens of the most exceptional nation in the history of the world, and we want to teach them to LOVE AMERICA." With this as a foundation of learning in our schools, no matter their level of education, we are destined now to raise a new generation of peace loving, God fearing, patriotic Americans and for that we should be excited and proud.
Today, some seven months later, despite the divide in my family and among many of my friends, I am proud to say that I have stood firm among the insults and jabs and I have stood by my man, President Donald J. Trump. There is nothing and no one that will ever persuade me that he is not the best man for our USA and the greater world.
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As we delve into this subject of the lie that says, that we in the United States of America are living in a system of White Supremacy, let us first define what white supremacy is. According to the Oxford online dictionary white supremacy is: the belief that white people are superior to those of all other races, especially the black race, and should therefore dominate society.
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· 3 years agoEveryone should read the Communist Manifesto that was entered into the Congressional Record in 1963. -
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· 3 years ago
Your words let me live it with ya! YOU ARE NOT ALONE! Great story!
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