What Donald Trump is teaching our kids (exceedingly well)

Tetyana Denford - 11 Dec 16

Growing up a daughter of immigrants, it was easy to live in manicured, suburban bliss and be only cursorily aware of American politics, the way the health care system works, and how much sugar is in foods (no, seriously, it’s everywhere, even in bread). I was growing up seeing how my parents and my grandmother felt hopeful: they’d stepped off the boat and worked hard to achieve the proverbial American Dream. Against all odds, they made it happen not least of all for themselves. It was for me. “This is for your future,” they would tell me.

The first time I really had pause about something was when my husband, who’s British, was living with me in New York right after we got married, and he asked me “so, why am I paying co-pay on top of the $500 a month that’s being taken out of my paycheque for health insurance? What are my taxes actually paying for?” With no answer to give him, I said “That’s how it works in America.” It was a canned answer, and he knew it. I had no information, I just gave him the “this country is great and we have so many opportunities, don’t worry about the healthcare system” speech that was burned into my brain as a kid. He wasn’t impressed.

Living over in the UK now for a solid 9 years, I’ve been granted a new and very removed perspective in watching how the All-Powerful American Machine operates. And the only way I can describe it is like watching a gothic puppet show where towards the end, the puppets’ faces start to melt and you see the corroded metal underneath and then the entire stage starts to crumble in flames.

The elections this year, which I’ll refer to as Bravo’s The (un)Real Politicians of Pennsylvania Avenue, became this whirlwind of media spin, bias, misogyny, double-talk, disingenuous behaviour and disrespect. It became a spectacle that defamed pretty much every race and religion and gender (but you were safe if you were a white dude in a suit). The world started feeling tenuous and unsafe. And in a final bid to say “fuck you all, we the people are voting for change, at any cost, even at a cost to ourselves and the rest of the world”, voters ushered in a dramatically elitist and misinformed government to rule them for the next 4 years.

But my most important point of this is that above all else, above the fact that this President-elect is lining his cabinet with the veritable round table from The 21 Club, above the fact that this man is about to change legislation protecting women’s bodies, above the fact that this man gets ragey and defensive on Twitter, even more importantly than the fact that this man likes to grab a bit of pussy and feels entitled to stick his tongue down women’s throats because he’s a Z-list celebrity… the most important thing that he’s teaching our kids?

Mediocrity.

Patton Oswalt put it brilliantly: ‘Anyone who gets near him gets dragged into the same sloppy, tossed-off, first-draft shitscape he lives in.’

The generation of little minds and voices, these little sponges that want to know how the world works… they’re being slowly conditioned to believe that the leader of the most powerful country on the planet can be a half-assed guy that has no interest in surrounding himself with poor people. They’re being taught that as long as you’re rich, you can do anything and have anyone do anything for you. They’re being shown that being an immigrant is perfectly okay as long as you have fake tits, a bit of botox and a history of posing nude to keep your man interested. In this new era of politics, in a year where we have 3D printers making vital organs for recipients and women are creating businesses centred around mothers needing a global village… we have a leader rolling his eyes at protesters and shutting down the choruses of people who matter.

We matter. Our kids matter.

I’m a child of immigrants, and mediocrity is dangerous. Mediocrity teaches the uninformed to turn me away because I speak another language. Mediocrity teaches our children to read off a cue card instead of reaching for their own words, their own voice. Mediocrity shames the weak, disenfranchises different cultures and strives for the monotonous middle ground instead of a blazing view at the top of a personal goal.

I won’t let my kids see mediocrity as an acceptable goal. I won’t let mediocrity dim their dreams. And I won’t let them let themselves accept it as their future.

Tetyana Denford

Tetyana is a Ukrainian-American mum of three, married to an Englishman, living in NY. She's written for Elle and Vogue magazines, and her first novel 'Motherland' is available at Amazon. She hosts a YouTube show called The Craft and Business of Books, translates for Frontline PBS news, and writes freelance.

View profile for posts, events and more info