On a recent babysitting gig, our 3-year-old granddaughter Lily introduced me to an old doll newly resurrected from the bottom of the toy box … Meet “Baby Donald Trump.”
Yes, you heard correctly. She christened this wayward child Baby Donald Trump. He cries, he whines, he pouts, and he throws his toys when he doesn’t get his way — pretty much like the real-life Donald Trump.
How this rubber doll, with the painted-on hair (no comment) acquired this moniker is still up for discussion within the family. Political playground propaganda handed out during snack-time? An overheard parental pre-dinner conversation during cocktails? A random act of 3-year-old genius while binge watching Disney Junior and eating a num-num bar? We may never know because, just as in the rest of our country’s voting population — no one in this family tree is ‘fessing up to being a supporter of the newly presumptive Republican presidential nominee — who, according to The Washington Post, is the “least popular candidate to represent either party in modern times.”
As radio and talk-show pioneer Art Linkletter once pointed out, ‘Kids Say the Darndest Things,’ and those little pitchers do indeed have big ears, especially during this political season of high volume, televised bullying and off-color rhetoric. And during this rancorous political campaign there is so much more for those little ears to overhear. Yelling, ‘build the wall;’ (more yelling), ‘this country is broken;’ (still more yelling), ‘out with everyone who is not like me;’ and so on and so forth, yaddah, yaddah, yaddah.
A non-stop sound-bite of negativity and anger coming from every direction, and there is no escape. I am all for starting the information dialogue with our children while they are still at that receptive and impressionable age, but I may have to draw the line at letting them name their toys after a flavor-of-the-month, twitter-addicted politician. Bill Maher, HBO host of Real Time with Bill Maher, once said in referring to Trump’s latest temper tantrum, “He is the grown-up version of every pain-in-the-ass kid who ever sat behind you on a plane kicking your seat.”
So for now, let Lily and all the toddlers of the country have their Baby Donald Trump and their Princess Hillary dolls. All too soon their insular little bubbles of information will be burst, and they too will be faced with the daunting task of choosing who best to govern their generation. Hopefully, I will be around when that time comes so I can remind her of the words of Mark Twain:
“Politicians and diapers have one thing in common — they both should be changed regularly, and for the same reason.”
Julianne Wood, a longtime resident of Oak Park and River Forest, now resides in Elmwood Park.