Innocence shines in US prez poll
President Barack Obama’s daughters are unique figures in the November 6 presidential election because they are so innocent compared with the rest of the political world.
Do you know that President Obama’s daughters (Malia and Sasha) use cell phones at home only during weekends? Do you know the two girls cannot watch TV or use computer for anything but homework during the week?
Well, that’s what the US First Lady Michelle Obama has set as household rules for her two daughters.
Here are a few household rules that Michelle Obama sets for her kids:
–When the girls go on trips, they’ve to write reports on what they have seen, even if their school does not require it.
— Malia and Sasha had to take up two sports: one they chose and one selected by their mother. “I want them to understand what it feels like to do something you don’t like and to improve,” the First Lady said.
— Malia must learn to do laundry before she leaves for college.
— The girls have to eat their vegetables, and if they say that they are not hungry, they cannot ask for cookies or chips later. “If you’re full, you’re full,” Mrs Obama said in an interview with Ladies’ Home Journal. “I don’t want to see you in the kitchen after that.”
So far Obama’s two daughters have not had a gaffe or an embarrassing moment – a rarity for such well-known figures, especially when it comes to presidents’ children. Chelsea Clinton was tormented as an adolescent for having freckles and frizzy hair. Barbara and Jenna Bush became tabloid fodders for their nighttime adventures. Malia and Sasha, on the other hand, are composed, polite and content.
Talking about the two girls, JJ Abrams, a Hollywood writer-director said: “They’re authentic, and we’re starving for that.”
White House aides who know the two girls say they are so well-behaved, disciplined and innocent, thanks to their father but mostly to their mother. Some staff members even joke that they wish they could send their own children to Mrs Obama’s boot camp for training.
The Obama family stories are an implicit counter to right-wing charges that Obama is a threatening figure, a socialist or somehow un-American. “The family seems so utterly normal, the type of people who could be at the soccer game or basketball game,” said Steve Schmidt, who managed Senator John McCain’s 2008 bid for president.
Kids hardly have their childhood now. They seem to become adult so soon. Technology-driven world and parental pampering have taken away innocence from kids’ lives. If your kids aren’t tech-savvy, if they don’t behave like adults, they will be branded as immature and laggards or out of tune with modern times.
Malia and Sasha are sterling examples of how innocence can still be retained and how childhood can be enjoyed in this age of technology and gizmos.
