This is my first diary, and I feel like I have to explain what led me here. Not that long ago my daughter asked me " Daddy, what do you do ? " I answered that I worked, went to school, cooked and cleaned, and tried to take care of her and her brother. She looked kinda puzzled and asked " You have a job? " I was really thrown for a loop. She needed to identify my role in the wider world, and I couldn't answer her. I guess I experienced my first full-blown identity crisis since adolescence. I decided that if it was important for my daughter to be able to identify me in some way, I wanted to be something more for her than a teacher, or a student, or just a guy that goes to a job. The thing is I am frightened for her and her brother...
They are growing up in a country that seems more and more unfamiliar to me. They know that there is a war going on, and they ask me why. They watched in horror, with my wife and me, the aftermath of Katrina. It scared them, and they asked me why. They were too young to understand the implications of 9-11 when it happened, but they are growing up now and ...wait for it... asking me why. They are six and eight years old, and I am drowning under a cascade of whys. Most of them are innocent, and annoyingly sweet. But some of them aren't. I believe in never, without the very best of reasons, lying to my children. Or being deliberately obtuse, or evading their questions. Kids are smart, and they sniff it out when you patronize them like that. So I realized that I had been fooling myself. Going to school, and to work, and taking care of my home, were all self-serving things that happened to benefit the kiddos. I also realized that worrying about what they might think of me years down the road was also self-serving. So I am here, I want them to have a country and a life that I can recognize. That world was better than this. I'm not nostalgic for the good old days. I am mourning the days when children were raised in a free country. Everything I learned about this country and our freedoms hangs in tatters after these last 6 years. So I stopped talking back to the TV, I stopped lurking on this site, and joined. I started making phone calls, and I put my feet on the ground and started knocking on doors. I hate to sound preachy, but I had to do something. Thanks for listening. Oh, I forgot a question, " Daddy ,do you ever like the president ?" That one can be fun, I can get way down on their level.