I’m a dad. Two boys, 6 and 2. They’re young, they’re insane most of the time (I mean, who jumps off a sofa onto a hardwood floor while giggling other than completely crazy people … seriously now …), and most of all they’re impressionable.

I can’t count how many times I’ve told my 2-year-old, “No hit Daddy!” when he’s whacked me on the skull for no reason. Then my 6-year-old will chime in, “Yeah! Hit Daddy!” and whack me on the skull, only to be shortly followed by a now maniacally giggling 2-year-old who whacks me on the skull again.

Hey, they’re young kids. I get it. When they turn 18 I’ll have my revenge with thousands of pictures of them doing all manner of embarrassing kid things that will be painstakingly examined by myself and any female friend they decide to bring over for dinner. Heh.

I digress …

I want to raise these boys right. I want Americans as kids. I want them to know about the Revolutionary War, understand what soldiers do, know the meaning behind the flag, the pledge, and the anthem. Respect for one’s country doesn’t come easy though, not for kids. They’re being assaulted on all sides by the un-American, the disrespectful, and the ungrateful among us. In addition to that, they have no frame of reference. I can tell him until I’m blue in the face that in some countries, girls aren’t allowed to go to schools (my 6-year-old barely believes that fact). Or a government can take away anything you own. Or you can be put in jail because some idiot mugger broke into your house and tried to take your money, and you tried to defend yourself. Having not lived in that scenario, it’s hard for a child to understand and feel reverence for the freedoms that are afforded him as a citizen of the United States. They don’t know that kind of hell because we’re in a great country and most of us our great parents that give anything to make their life comfortable - to allow them to live as a kid … jumping off the sofa, running around soaking wet through a sprinkler and laughing on a hot summer day without any care - no Iraq war - no Presidential primary … just being safe, secure, happy kids living in the exact moment their in.

So how do you go about raising a Patriot? Learning about historical figures ends up helping - factoids about Ben Franklin, the story about the Boston Tea Party. At six, my son has a basic understanding of “taxation without representation” and why it got lots of people pissed off. This is all a part of raising him to be respectful. He knows what “one if by land, two if by sea” means. At six, he should, if you ask me.

This is part of the reason as a gun-owner I show my 6-year-old my firearms whenever he asks. Answer his questions, engage him, teach him. He knows the rules, he knows safety, and they aren’t mystical items locked away in the basement. And by the way - this isn’t a concerted effort such as sitting down and learning about some specific event like a classroom. It’s subtle things. See a flag at half-mast? I’ll ask him why he thinks it’s not all the way up. Engage and talk about the answer.

Which brings me to this book:

How To Raise An American. My wife and I bought this because it’s something we’re interested in - Patriotic projects. Now, if you just look at the “discussion” about this book on Amazon, you’re treated to this kind of tripe under the discussion heading, “PROPAGANDA”:

I am afraid a book on how to be an American is, in itself, UNAMERICAN! I fear this book aims to program children with a noncritical, non intellectually curious point of view so desirable in the current manifestation of the right wing. Protect your children. LET THEM THINK, LET THEM INVESTIGATE, AND LET THEM MAKE UP THEIR MINDS. That is what Americans are supposed to do!

Of course, if they think, make up their minds, and decide that this is in fact a great country, they’re idiot knuckle-dragging neocons! This is what I mean by “assaulted on all sides”. There’s no shortage of un-American dumbasses out there who are more than willing to teach you that America is somehow born of illegitimacy because we stole it from peace-loving Indians Native Americans. We stomp all over other countries and thus we’re all evil. Our military kills people and thus they’re all evil too.

Think about what your child has the potential to learn on a daily basis … All of the EARTH’S ills - everything from raising the temperature of the sea to make the world’s population suffer and burn and die, to cave-dwelling religious nutcases wanting us to submit, convert, or have our heads sawed off on camera is ALL OUR FAULT. Starvation in Africa? America’s fault. Gas prices? America’s fault. Global warming cooling “climate change”? America’s fault. Anti-Americanism? America’s fault.

America the Big Bully. Full of Americans who are inconsiderate, brash, holier-than-thou, violence-loving bastards.

I’ll be damned if I let my child become diseased like your average America-hating liberal “intellectual”. This is what’s being taught in schools, peddled in articles, thrown on television, and instilled in children’s mind by lesser parents who grew up with their own parents who flashed their peace signs, protested against whatever they could, spit on veterans, and are so closed-minded and short-sighted as to not understand that an America that accepts every identity individually is an America with no identity of it’s own.

I’m not going to link to the book or anything - I’ll give it a healthy endorsement sans any prospect of an affiliate sale. Most of all, it just has those small ideas that make you think. The book had a question in it that I’ve been thinking about nearly every day since I heard it:

“At what moment do you feel the most patriotic? At what moment do you feel the least patriotic?”

My answer was simple … Most patriotic? At the range. The founding fathers wrote the 2nd, and I’m doing it more than 200 years later. That’s an amazing thing to me. Least patriotic? Paying taxes. :-)

When we asked my son, his answer really took me by surprise … before I get to that, just a quick backstory so you can understand his answer …

My wife walks with the kids a couple times a week. They go through the town, a few neighborhoods, and through a nice cemetery. As a six-year-old, a cemetery is just curiosity-central. “There’s DEAD PEOPLE under there!?” Fascinating stuff. He sees graves of people who have died more than a hundred years ago. He sees stones marked with dates such as “1983-1986″ and has begun to understand that yes, some people haven’t lived as long as he has at six years old.

So his answer to the question, of when do you feel the most patriotic?

“When we’re walking through the cemetery, and I see that American soldiers who died in wars are buried there and I can remember them.”

See that? It’s possible. Possible in the face of a swirling storm of anti-Americanism to raise a Patriot. A child who is proud to be a part of this country, who understands not everything - but at least a little about what it is to have an independent spirit and have gifts passed down from earlier generations. One who knows the concept of sacrifice, but can still giggle, laugh, jump off a sofa and land on his head, or run through a sprinkler without a care in the world.

I’m not issuing a call to action on all you parents out there. This is more of a, “hey, this really isn’t so bad” piece from my heart. It’s not hard to teach little things, ask questions, and put some positive thoughts in your kid’s head so their first exposure to Americanism isn’t one of shame, guilt and disdain. Teach them a little bit about history, teach them to be proud, and teach them to have an American identity that’s all their own.