Tonight we were at our weekly dinner with my wife's parents. They're the best grandparents ever.
However, my mother-in-law listens to nothing but Fox News/KFI right-wing talk radio, and has... let's say, "debatable" political opinions, and often tries to get us to debate with her.
So we try not to get political if we can help it. If she brings it up, we change the subject.
(My father-in-law is a TRUE Christian conservative, by which I mean he believes in the actual teachings of Jesus and actually does want to help the poor and needy and spends a great deal of his time doing just that. He embraces the idea of "God is Love". But he's also super-catholic and very anti-abortion. He also still has faith in the capitalist system. So, those two factors make him still a conservative. But honestly, he's the most christian christian I know.)
So tonight we were having dinner together, as we do every friday night.
The news was on the TV in the restaurant, and our kids (10yo and 8yo) BOTH ask... "Who is that Luigi guy??"
My kids are obsessed with watching youtube videos of people playing Super Mario Bros games, so naturally they know who the REAL Luigi is, and a live human person with that name is just a very strange curiosity.
So they say, "Who is that guy named Luigi on the TV? And people at school talk about Luigi and we don't know who he is. He's not the video game Luigi. We know that much."
And I look at my mother-in-law. And I look at my father-in-law. And I look at my wife. I could tell they were all anxious about what I would say.... but I played it cool.
I said, "Well, he's a guy who shot another guy. But the guy he shot wasn't very well-liked, so there's debate about whether what he did was a good thing or a bad thing."
...And the kids straight-up accepted that explanation!! Zero follow-up. It just made perfect sense to them.
And the grandparents were satisfied and my wife let out a HUGE sigh of relief, and the conversation veered back to Super Mario Bros. and peace was maintained.
I was astonished the kids didn't try to dig deeper. And also very thankful.
#peacekeeping #keepingthepeace #family #luigi #luigimangione #justifiedviolence #politics @uspolitics@mastodon.social @uspolitics@newsmast.community #uspol
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