"Dean says only boys can be president"

On explaining the world to a child

My oldest child is four. He understands the following difficult concepts:

• There is war, but it is happening far away from him, and he is safe.

• Dinosaurs went extinct because a meteor hit the earth, and one day the sun will explode and all life will cease to exist.

• The baby chicken in his classroom incubator died because her body was not strong enough to live, and it’s not her fault.

• Great-grandma Bobby died because she was very old, and one day everybody we love will hopefully get to be very old, and then they will die.

• Nobody knows what happens after they die, but it is important to be kind and loving while you are alive, because the kind things you do will keep having an effect on the whole world even after you are gone.

• If the Lego says “Ages 9+” a grown up will need to help get the pegs into the holes that require a bit more finger strength.

• There are no women presidents because only boys can be president.

The last thing was taught to him by a kid at his camp whose name I changed out of respect for the asshole sweet child.

My son mentioned it casually this morning from the back seat of the car. Here is our conversation, annotated with what I thought.

ME: Who are you looking forward to seeing at camp today, love?

GOOF: Dean says women can’t be president.

ME: What? Who is Dean?

GOOF: He’s from camp.

ME: Well! Does Dean know everything?

• We will lead a horse to water. This is a teachable moment about trusting reliable sources and he’ll know that kids at camp or school might not kno-

G: Yes. Dean is six. When I am six I will know everything.

• Jesus. OK. I’ll just be explicit.

ME: Dean is wrong. There hasn’t been a woman president yet, but that is because only one woman has even tried to be president, and it turns out, when they counted everybody’s choices, a MILLION more people chose the woman to be president over the man who won.

G: The Bad Guy?

ME: That’s right.

• Very sorry but he can have his own opinions when he’s older.

G: Did the Bad Guy kill the woman?

• What? We need to stop watching Lego Batman. Only educational shit from now on.

ME: No, love. Nobody killed anyone. It was just not fair, and now we need everybody to do the kind thing for the planet and for each other and choose the woman by voting for her. Then she’ll be president. Do you know what voting is?

G: Yes. It’s when everyone at school has a magnet with their name on it, and they put the magnet under the fruit they like best. Mine was dried strawberries but there was only wet strawberries on the board. That’s voting. I vote all the time sometimes.

ME: Yes. Sure. Exactly. And now people will hopefully vote for the woman, because she…helps people…and kids! And then there will be a woman president.

• Is this working? I am exactly the nightmare conservatives imagine. Liberal witch indoctrinates impressionable young American.

G: But she can’t.

ME: Why not?

G: Because she’s not a boy.

ME: That’s not true. Dean is wrong and that is wrong.

• Great. I have failed. I have failed as a parent and as a woman. Fucking Dean. But it isn’t Dean’s fault! I’m raising a kid in a universe of Deans and if this didn’t come up, my own kid would just quietly accept sexist notions as fact almost as if sexism is dormant in every human and just waiting to be activated. But that’s not true! Dean is endemic to a culture where women are expected to apologize for existing and quietly retreat while men like Dean’s bullshit red-faced frat guy father and his drinking buddies sit around every Saturday talking about some “bitch” at work while Dean plays baseball just within earshot. Kids are sponges — of course — and they’re soaking in the misogyny around them all the time everywhere and it falls, surprise sur-fucking-prise on the labor of a mother to right the ship before it crashes into a giant cliff of bias and bad metaphors.

G: MAMA STOP BREATHING LIKE THAT!

ME: I’M NOT GOING TO STOP BREATHING!

[SILENCE]

• Great. He’ll tell his therapist his mom was an hysteric. And he won’t be wrong!

G: Why are you upset?

ME: I’m sad because it’s very important for you to know that a woman do whatever a man can do, including be president.

G: Because you are a woman?

ME: Do you think I could be president?

G: No.

ME: Why not?

G: Because I’d miss you too much.

ME: That’s true. And I’d miss you.

• That’s true. And I’d miss you.

G: Maybe you can be president in, like, twenty days.

ME: Okay, my love. In twenty days.

[WE PARK IN THE CAMP PARKING LOT, I WALK AROUND THE CAR TO GET HIM OUT OF HIS SEAT. HE LOOKS AT ME WITH ALL THE WONDERMENT OF THE KNOWN WORLD]

G: And…mama?

ME: Yes, my sweet one.

G: A woman cannot pee.

ME: What?

G: Because she does not have a penis yet.

ME: Ok! Have a great day at camp! Love you!