Commentary: A Lesson From My Son As President Trump Is Hospitalized For Having COVID

In May 1983, my first husband and I were living in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, a suburb of Tulsa. We had just bought a new (used) car, a hunter green, 1982 Volkswagen Jetta. We had specifically picked that particular car due to its safety ratings and for the smooth handling that German engineering provided. I loved that car.

At the time, I was five months pregnant with my second son, Philip, while my oldest son, Anthony, was 2 ?. One early weekday morning, I set out for McCartney’s, a new local grocery store, and to run a few other errands. I dutifully strapped Anthony in his car seat in the back seat in preparation for the trip, as I was always militant about my son being in a car seat, never once failing to strap him carefully into the safest car seat that money could then buy.

After making sure Anthony was securely belted in, I climbed into the driver’s seat and secured the “new” shoulder seat belt in place - the harness connected over my left shoulder, as opposed to how seat belts attach now - because as a safety feature, the car engine would not start unless the seat belt was buckled. I didn’t like how it felt at all, restrictive and uncomfortable, especially with my pregnant belly, so after starting the car, I reached up and unfastened the shoulder harness.

As odd as that may seem today, in those days seat belts were regarded more as an irritating annoyance than helpful to people of my generation. I was raised standing on the “hump” on the floor of the back seat, leaning over the front seat, when my Mom drove, even sleeping on my half of the back seat floor and using the hump as a quasi-pillow on longer trips when my Dad drove. In 1983, using seat belts was not mandatory in the US, there were no laws about it yet, and the general thinking was that every person had the right to decide if he/she were going to connect a seat belt in his/her own car - a personal decision, a “right” if you will, a “freedom” to drive as each person saw fit, with or without wearing a seat belt.

Back to my morning running errands in May.

Just after disconnecting my shoulder-harness seat belt, I heard my beautiful son Anthony say in a very thoughtful, innocent, clear voice from the back seat, “Mommy? Why do I have to sit in my car seat, if you don’t have to wear your seat belt?”

The purity of his trust, the clarity of his logic (and at only 2 ? years of age) hit me like a torrent of shame. Anthony relied on me 100% for his safety, and I owed my son a duty of care to be safe for him, safe for his unborn sibling, safe for all others I loved and who loved me, by using a simple device that was created for that very safety, by setting an important example for him. And yet, I hadn’t. Anthony had unknowingly called me out as a hypocrite, and he was right to do so – I was exactly that. Through my tears at having set such a poor example for my son, the son who meant and still means the world to me, I simply said, “You’re right,” as I reconnected my seat belt.

I have never once not worn my seat belt in the thirty-seven years since that day, and have insisted that everyone in any car I was in – whether I was the driver OR passenger – did the same. It was a duty I owed myself, as well as those in the car with me. The laws making it mandatory for everyone to use seat belts took eleven years (1984 – 1995) to be enacted by state law in each of the states across the nation, but it wasn’t about the law for me; it was about doing what was right to stay as safe as possible, and not to tell my son to do one thing when I was doing the polar opposite.

This watershed moment in my life crept into my thoughts all through last night, as I grappled with the news that the President was hospitalized for his COVID infection. I was trying to reconcile my feelings about the news, and was struggling to do so. On the one hand, I have utter compassion for anyone who has this deadly virus, and sincerely wish him well, as equally as I would wish anyone a swift recovery from this wretched disease. On the other hand, I found myself unwillingly feeling angry at the President, but couldn’t pin down why. Ultimately, after hours of tossing and turning, I realized that my conflicted feelings were rooted in the painful memory of my own failing in front of my precious son.

With position comes responsibility, whether as a parent or as a President. The duty of care to be the best possible example, actively demonstrating behaviors that are in the best interest of not only you, but also those who trust, rely, and depend on you, is more important than any inconvenience, personal discomfort, or assertion of “rights” you believe you have to choose, especially when NOT choosing to do so places you and those around you in potential danger. Whether the debate over seat belts in the 1980s and 1990s, or wearing masks in the pandemic, the science is irrefutable that seat belts save lives - and masks do, too.

The decision not to use either is parallel, a literal crap shoot in both cases – maybe you will not be in an accident as you drive around without wearing your seat belt. Maybe you arrive home safely, empowered and emboldened, that you have just demonstrated (with a kind of smug proof) that seat belts don’t really matter. But then again, maybe you don't. Even though laws in every state but New Hampshire require wearing seat belts now, many drivers still refuse to wear them everywhere. But I will tell you that in my personal experience, the “no exception” rule in my life that everyone was securely belted in, ultimately literally saved the life of my youngest daughter, Emily, twelve years after my epiphany with Anthony, when a tractor-trailer broadsided her and her Dad in a catastrophic accident just a month before her fourth birthday. Miraculously, she survived – saved by her seat belt, as was her father. I gratefully thought of Anthony’s wise 2-year old words that day, too.

Which brings me to today and my conflicted feelings. Ultimately, last night I had to separate the person of the President, in terms of his health, from the power and responsibility that he holds as the leader of the free world. In essence, separating who the man is (the human “being”) from the role and the duty of care that that role holds (the human “doing”). Regardless of your political views, he is the President of the United States, and as such – just as Anthony had to rely on me – as a nation, the number one job for which President Trump was elected is to keep our nation safe. That safety begins with his duty of care to remain healthy enough to fitfully uphold that duty of care, by engaging in the safest behaviors available.

Do seat belts always prevent injury in car accidents? No. Does wearing a mask and social distancing always prevent contracting the coronavirus? No. Is there any way to determine that the President, in particular, not wearing a mask and foregoing social distancing led to his illness? Probably, as we do know scientifically that wearing a mask and social distancing greatly reduces the risk of infection, and that those in his closest inner circle who also did not avail themselves of safety protocols were/are sick with COVID. So, to not engage in every option to stay as safe as science tells us that we could and arguably should, is rolling the proverbial dice, where the odds are higher that something bad will happen. My frustration is rooted in wondering why anyone, including our President, would increase the risk unnecessarily? Why not err on the side of health and science? And how have these two simple behaviors – wearing a mask and social distancing - become a political issue, when the unilateral safety of ALL people is at stake?

When it comes to public health and safety, mandates such as seat belts, airport security, and helmet laws, are often met with resistance initially. The same argument about “personal rights” and “personal freedoms” were the consistent rallying cry on those issues, just as the opposition to mask-wearing and social distancing is, in the climate of today’s pandemic. But at the end of the day, time and fateful experience wear down those beliefs like water drops falling onto a rock. In retrospect, you are horrified at the unnecessary riskiness of behaviors in which you engaged that could have prevented so much pain and, yes, even death – risks that were acceptable before, but are unthinkable now.

I freely and humbly admit that I was so very wrong to be cavalier, to be a hypocrite, about not wearing a seat belt back in 1983, while I simultaneously insisted that my son needed to follow MY safety rules. I can admit that, in that circumstance, I abdicated my primary role as Mother – to stay as safe as possible, so that I could be there for my family. And while I have forgiven myself for it, I have never forgotten the invaluable lesson that came from that personal epochal moment. But unlike the implications of my poor decision-making in 1983, President Trump’s illness is not only about his personal health, it is about the literal health and safety of our nation, and the vulnerability in which his illness has placed our nation worldwide, at a time that is unprecedented in the complexities of the challenges our country is facing.

As I always look for a silver lining, a learning opportunity, in every circumstance, in addition for praying for the President’s health, I also pray that the President will choose to use his personal experience with this illness as a leadership opportunity; to ultimately help create a safer nation by (at the least) encouraging a uniform mask-wearing and social distancing policy nationwide that is a reversal of his stance prior to contracting the coronavirus himself.

There is no substitute for experience; there is no wisdom more profound that that which is rooted in personal circumstance; and there is still time and opportunity to alter the course moving the nation forward toward the healthiest possible response to this devastating pandemic.

Please wear a mask. Please social distance.

My prayers, as always, for our country, our President and his family, its people, its leaders and their families, and its safety.

Together, we are stronger.