How We Speak to Our Kids: Assessing VP Candidate’s Words

There are several topics about which I have often written (obviously in addition to trauma): our words, our empathy, our self-reflection, the importance of child development, our anger, our meanness.

Behind Closed Doors

It is hard to know what goes on in the privacy of one’s home. As educators, pre-Pandemic, we oft-times did not recognize the tensions and dysfunctions in the lives of our students. We sometimes knew if they were hungry or lacking sleep. We did not know the words and tone their families used with each other.

Online learning during the Pandemic provided a window into family dynamics. And what we saw wasn’t always pretty. But that opening allowed us to better see and understand our students. We had information that we could use to help students succeed. That was a Pandemic Positive, a term Ed Wang and I use in our forthcoming book, Mending Education.

Voice

I know that lots of now adult folks grew up with the misinformed adage: children should be seen and not heard. The silencing of kids has always bothered me — it is as if their voice doesn’t count. And kids are remarkable truth tellers if we give them opportunities to share their voice. Stifling voice hurts and it leads to repression of feelings. Ask anyone who has been told to “shut up.” (And sure, we can’t have kids screaming at all parts of the day and night.)

Whether one uses the phrase “shut up” harshly or to create important needed quiet, the words frequently sting. Of course, context and culture matter. The when’s and where’s of uttering “shut up” from adult to adult or from parent to child (or the reverse) make an enormous difference, positively and negatively.

And the term “shut up” has been used in a jest like way — as if the listener is saying: “I can’t believe you just said that.” Call it a slang variant of “shut up.”

VP Candidate Word Use

Already, Vance has been called out on his words: expressions he has used to describe others. Assuming reporting from multiple sources is correct, there is a troubling recent incident involving how Vance spoke to his son.

The telling goes that when Trump called Vance to anoint him the Republican VP candidate, Vance was having trouble hearing the words on the phone because his son was chattering about Pokeman (that card game kids play).

It is reported that Vance turned to his son and said something like: “Shut the hell up.” ( Trump’s response is worthy of another blog).

In what Vance saw as “his moment,” his son was interfering. Vance did not say “please keep it down son” or “can you lower the volume a tad?” He told his son to “shut up,” so he (Vance) could hear Trump.

Now perhaps Vance regularly tells his son to “shut up.” Perhaps his tone was gentle. Perhaps if it is a phrase that the Vance’s use to create quiet on important occasions. I have no idea. And one needs to be really careful about taking one phrase in one setting of one parent- child interaction and drawing conclusions.

But…

Here is what worries me: politics and leadership occur in fishbowls. What we do and say is heard and magnified – for better or for worse. Indeed, one of the questions I was asked frequently when being interviewed for a college presidency was: How well do you function in a fishbowl or have you had experience with fishbowls or describe a fishbowl experience. Turns out I have had many fishbowl experiences and I have certainly handled some better than others.

Vance is in now, and would be in if elected, a mega fishbowl. Telling his son to “shut up” worries me. First, it wasn’t allowing for his son quietly to calm down in the context of a call. Next, it came out as Vance’s own agenda was being announced, suggesting he (Vance) needed to concentrate and can’t share air. Next, it showed a remarkable lack of patience in a hot moment — something that happens all the time in leadership.

Broken Volume Buttons

I am not criticizing Vance’s parenting. I lack sufficient information on that topic. But I am commenting on his use of a phrase that does raise red flags for me: the use of the words “shut up” do not speak well for his capacity to be patient; they suggest he does not use his words with care and reflect on others besides himself; it suggests a self-focus and set of blinders that he wears that message authority or ambition, not in and of themselves bad traits.

I have been told to “shut up” in my past and it stings. I have never ever uttered those words aloud to another. I have wanted to do so for sure but I haven’t said them aloud. I have asked for quiet. I have told people to tone down the volume.

I think Vance and his boss’s volume buttons are broken. That’s not good and there are limited repairs possible I suspect. In the rumble of politics, saying “shut up” curbs voice. We live in a Democracy where voices count. I know a family is not a democracy and kids need to know they are not adults and adults do have a certain power over their kids. But as with all power imbalances, we need to show restraint and decency and insight…..

And outside the family setting (where family behavior may mirror workplace power), we need abundant grace, restraint, decency and communication. “SHUT UP” surely misses those needed milestones and markers.