As America’s children woke up to a new president-elect today, CNN’s Dana Bash offered some words of advice for parents struggling with how to explain the election results to their kids.
When “Newsroom” anchor Brooke Baldwin asked how the chief political correspondent had personally explained the results to her 5-year-old son, Bash referenced an earlier exchange with a fellow mom.
“It’s so funny that you ask me that question because just before I came on with you I was reading an email that my best friend from college sent me from the head of her kids’ school,” she said.
“And it went into answering that exact question. And just to boil it down, it is, this is how it works, this is democracy. This is why we live in the best country on the planet, because when people rise up, they do it with their votes. And that’s what happened.”
Bash acknowledged, though, that for parents who were Clinton supporters, the explaining could prove challenging.
“It is, of course, a heartbreak for all of the people who took their daughters and sons [to the polling place] because they personally were voting for the first female president and they wanted their kids to be a part of that,” Bash said.
“But they’re also part of something bigger than the gender,” she added.
Parents should explain that “sometimes democracy is messy,” Bash advised.
“But the fact that all these leaders, including the current president of the United States came out today to say it’s a peaceful transition, we’re going to all get behind our new president and hope that he does well, is something we should be proud of as Americans,” she added.