Kennedy: Forget being PC, what about having manners?

The presidential primaries for both parties have included mudslinging and low-ball politics.
The presidential primaries for both parties have included mudslinging and low-ball politics.

A normal election year would be a learning opportunity for kids.

But not 2016. At least, not yet.

photo Mark Kennedy

View other columns by Mark Kennedy

When election news appears on television, I sometimes grab the remote and change the channel. I don't want my 9-year-old son to watch.

It's sad. When it comes to exercising parental discretion, politics is now right up there with sex and violence. Presidential primary campaigns have become too raw for kids.

And it's almost impossible to teach a child good manners these days, when our leaders have become a bunch of potty-mouthed bullies.

Our two sons don't watch political debates for the same reason they aren't allowed to watch professional wrestling - we're not eager for them to take up hair-pulling and eye-gouging.

Or to learn how to hurl degrading insults:

"Mommy, he wet his pants!"

"Shut up!"

"I don't shut up, I grow up; and when I think of you I throw up."

This hypothetical exchange - our boys don't actually talk like that - is tame compared to some of the jeering we've been hearing from candidates.

Parents, be honest. Raise your hands if you would let your son or daughter denigrate the opposite sex, lie, engage in bathroom humor, mock the disabled, curse or insult an American prisoner of war. All of that has happened in the primary races.

In my South, this is unacceptable behavior. Period. I was raised to be unforgiving when it comes to folks with irredeemably bad manners. Yet ridicule seems to be the new weapon of choice for presidential candidates.

For the first time in my lifetime, there is no person in either party's presidential primaries to whom I would point as a wonderful role model for children.

I'm sure some of the candidates have good traits, but nobody stands out as the embodiment of virtue. For the record, I would say both Jimmy Carter's faith and the late Ronald Reagan's strength of conviction are character traits worth holding up to my kids.

Last week, my 9-year-old son posed a question.

"Daddy, when is Super Tuesday?"

"You're in luck," I said. "It's today."

"What is it?" he asked.

"It's the day a lot of people vote to decide who will run for president," I explained.

Then I learned that even our 9-year-old is aware of the acrimony on the campaign trail.

"You're not voting for one of those mean guys, are you?" he asked.

"I'll try not to," I said. "But that limits my choices."

To think that our third-graders have already become cynical about politics is more than a little disturbing.

Later, at work that Tuesday, I was sporting my election day "I Voted" lapel sticker. I asked a co-worker if he made it to his precinct.

"No, I forgot my clothespin," he said, pinching his nose.

"Know what you mean, man," I said.

Politics has always been a form of entertainment in America. Nothing wrong with that. But when it tips into absurd behavior - as it has in this election cycle - we are all diminished.

Years from now our kids will look back on video from the presidential primaries of 2016 and wonder where our generation went wrong, how we got so mean-spirited and hateful.

As grown-ups who have allowed this to happen, we should feel more than a little ashamed.

Mark Kennedy is a resident of Signal Mountain. His columns appear in the Times Free Press on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Contact him at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 757-6645. Follow him on Twitter @TFPCOLUMNIST. Subscribe to his Facebook updates at facebook.com/mkennedycolumnist.

Upcoming Events