After a long day of work and parenting, my wife and I read our child stories in the hope that her five-year old brain and body will drift into slumber before ours do. This time spent together reading is a special, private respite from the demands of the day. We bond and have fun and our daughter learns about the world through the books we choose to read.
The magic of this bedtime ritual was recently threatened when a well-meaning relative invited Callista Gingrich to join us by giving our daughter her book, Sweet Land of Liberty, as a birthday gift. As parents on the other end of the political spectrum, the sight of the happy Republican elephant on the cover waving an American flag with its trunk while staring at the Statue of Liberty (next to a seagull that looks curiously like a shrunken bald eagle) evoked cringes and irritation.
My wife and I noted that “shelving” the book could teach our child that generous gifts can be easily discarded and that it is acceptable to allow them to go unappreciated. We decided that we would read the book at bedtime and that we would, no matter how tempting, not ridicule the book. I faithfully carried out the reading phase of the decision but was unable to resist ridicule.
America is a special country with amazing wealth and an impressive capacity for innovation and industry. That being said, the first paragraph on the first page states that the elephant was “eager to see how America became the land of the free.” I know my nation’s national anthem contains those lyrics but our child must know that America is not the only land whose citizens are free. We discussed how people in many other countries are similarly free to do as they please.
The next page addresses the arrival of the pilgrims to North America. It states of the pilgrims, “with the help of God, they survived cold and beast and celebrated together with a Thanksgiving feast.” The illustration shows Native Americans and pilgrims at a table together with the Native Americans looking to the pilgrims with approving and admiring smiles. We talked about how, in addition to any help from God, the Native Americans taught the pilgrims skills for surviving in the new world and that, without those skills, the pilgrims were suffering badly. They deserved the pilgrims’ thanks too.
It was on the page addressing Abraham Lincoln that I was most bemused. Calista writes “throughout the Civil War, President Lincoln stood tall. His leadership was admired by one and by all.” At that point in the book and the day, I could only muster the crack that, while I am no historian, I am quite confident that there was at least one man that did not admire Linclon’s leadership or, if he did, he had a very strange way of showing his admiration.
In all fairness, Olive did say that the elephant is cute.
Bryan Biedscheid is an attorney in Santa Fe, New Mexico
