How I'm Talking With My Kids About Trump

Part 1/3, plus the GBBW

Last night, while playing digital solitaire before bed, my 9-year-old asked, “Will any of the things Trump is doing hurt us?”

He’d heard about some of the things the new administration is doing and, as usual, asked about it in the final 10 minutes before bed.

“Well,” I said, “Probably not too much. The answer that’s true isn’t a good thing, but between being white and having enough money, and also living in a state like California, most of what he’s doing won’t impact us directly.”

Then, he asked a follow up question. “What about the kids at my school? Will what Trump is doing hurt them?”

My son’s elementary school is about two-thirds Latino. It’s a Title I school, with almost half of the student body meeting the state’s definition of being socio-economically at risk. Over 10% of the kids are still working towards being fluent in English.

“Yes, kiddo. What Trump’s doing has already hurt the kids at your school. There are kids who are themselves undocumented or have family members who are, and who are scared of what that might mean. There are kids whose parents have to worry about whether they’re going to lose jobs or will be able to afford what they need.”

Then he asked something I’ve never heard from him. “What are we going to do?”

As options to respond exploded in my brain, I tried to push down the feeling of, “Oh honey, the grownups are so overwhelmed and stunned that we don’t even know yet,” and instead think, what are we going to do that I can share with him right now?

And literally the day before, at Dinner Church, the kids explored the Kingdom of God parables (the same ones I’ve got for you in the GBBW today.) They held black mustard seeds in their sweaty palms and took 3 quiet minutes to ask God, "What does it look like for me to live in your kingdom today?”

So with a prayer of gratitude for Karis, who’d been with the kids, I said, “Remember how you got that seed and asked God what it might mean for you to live in God’s kingdom? We’re going to do that. We are going to live in lots of little ways that match who God is. We can’t change who Trump is, or what he’s going to do, but we can do that.

And then another prayer of gratitude for our church as I went on, “And the other grownups at church – we talked about this too. They all said the same; they are ready to do the things God might have for us to do. We’re going to do what we can to live in ways that match who God is, which means loving each other and also loving the people God loves who are being hurt by Trump’s actions.”

We are going practice living in the Kingdom of God.

I know there are some folks who feel uncomfortable with kingdom language, and I get that – we don’t have kings now, all kings are men, it feels embroiled with militaristic imagery and actions. But for me, I love it, and use it with kids especially because of the invitation to contrast the images and stories of Jesus’s reign with the reigns of whoever is fashioning themselves as the king, literally or metaphorically, in our world.

Jesus is King, but not like that.

And that’s one way I’m talking to my kids about Trump. (It’s also a way I’ve talked to them about the U.S. before and beyond Trump, because this isn’t actually about one individual. It’s also a way our family talks about just being a person in the world.)

“We are practicing imperfectly living like God really is King, and therefore we can trust that we will be taken care of, grace will always be there, and there’s more than enough. And we can help others who don't get to experience that for whatever reason to have the chance to.”

In other words, we are figuring out how to live in the kingdom for realsy¹ in our pretty run of the mill daily life.

AND

We’re figuring out how to live in the kingdom for realsy while Trump is doing thing after thing that is fundamentally in opposition to God.

This is a far cry from telling kids that Jesus invites people to receive him as Lord and Savior so that after this world ends (and therefore why care too much about it?) we can be beamed up to a sky city. It is, however, far closer to what Jesus actually said he was inviting people to do.

The Kingdom of God is an earthly reality available to anyone who would like to exchange their allegiance from Caesar to Christ, anyone who would like their own lives to look a little more like Jesus’.

And the kingdom does not come by having a champion in the halls of power but by being faithful in little ways and trusting that those little ways will expand. Like yeast in dough. Like a seed in the ground. Slowly, mysteriously, but unstoppably.

For realsy.