An Excerpt From Chapter One

THE PATRIOTISM GAP

            “We want to make our children feel that the mere fact of being Americans makes them better off.… This is not to blind us at all to our own shortcomings; we ought steadily to try to correct them; but we have absolutely no grounds to work on if we don’t have a firm and ardent Americanism at the bottom of everything.” ---Theodore Roosevelt

            What does it mean to be an American?  That’s what USA Today wanted to know last July 4th, and their readers told them.

            For Jeff Stark of Dublin, Ohio, being an American is “to live in the hometown of hope and dreams…where one hot dog stand can turn into two…where a second chance always follows a first…to live in the land of eternal promise for a better day…the Wrigley Field of nations.”

Another Ohio patriot, Mel Mauer says, “To be American is to be uniquely free.”

            Kathleen Butler of Wichita, Kansas loves America for its diversity, “We are as American as apple pie, or stir-fired rice, or enchiladas or curried chicken.  And because of that we are the luckiest people on the planet.”

            Being American?  “It’s about appreciating my country, loving it deeply and doing what I can to make the USA a better place.”  That was how World War II veteran Ezio Moscatelli of Columbia, Missouri put his patriotism into words.

            Opportunity, freedom, diversity, and duty.   Four Americans….four patriots…four different ways of  loving their country. 

            How about you?  Do you love America?  Are you the type who gets a lump in your throat when the flag passes by on the 4th of July? Do you get goose bumps when “The Star Spangled Banner” echoes in an Olympic stadium?  Does a lemonade stand manned by a determined 8-year-old on a hot summer day make you smile?  Do America’s unique history and values make you proud of your country? 

            If you said yes to these questions, congratulations! You’re probably a patriot.

            But here’s a much harder question. Do you believe your children, deep down, love this country and what it stands for, just as you do? You might be surprised to find out how your kids really feel about America. This wake-up call of a statistic shocked us. It may shock you, too.

If given the chance, almost one in four young Americans under thirty say they would rather live in another country.

            That’s what an Independence Day poll on patriotism taken by Fox News in 2005 found when it asked Americans: “All things being equal, would you prefer to live in the United States or would you prefer to live in some other country?

            Most of us probably feel like almost 95% of the respondents over thirty who said they preferred the good old USA. No big surprise there, but nearly a quarter of our young people—the very Americans who are supposed to fight the war on terror, beat back the economic challenge of China and India, and keep our country strong, safe and prosperous—would hightail it out of here if they could!

            And an even higher number of our young teens are pessimistic about America’s future. In a 2005 Time Magazine cover story about 13-year-olds, the editors themselves were surprised at how gloomy young teens have become about America.

            “In a shift from just five years ago, when the new millennial teens were generally optimistic about the future…Almost half, or 46%, believe that by the time they are their parents’ age, the U.S. will be a worse place to live in than it is now.”

            A startling percentage of our youngsters have little or no hope for America‘s future. Almost half, it seems, have no confidence in their own abilities to ensure that our country will remain a good place to live when they are ready to bring up their own children.

            Here’s another somewhat startling statistic: in a 2006 Scholastic Magazine poll, 80% of the kids said that they didn’t want to grow up to be President. The fact that our country was a place where a youngster from the humblest of circumstances could become the country‘s leader was once very much part of the American dream. But thirty thousand children in grades one to eight who participated in the Scholastic survey, said, “Thanks but no thanks” to the most important job in the world. In 2004, more than 80% of teens in the ABC/Weekly Reader also said they didn’t want to be President. Over 54%, both girls and boys from all ethnic backgrounds, thought they could be President, but they’d rather not. The primary reason? They just weren’t interested.

Most families in our country have experienced a better lifestyle in recent years than Americans have enjoyed at any other time in our nation’s past, so these statistics are more than a little confusing. How can some kids today seem to be so negative or apathetic about the country that gives them so much?  Why are some so downright uninterested and disillusioned they neither believe America is a special place with a special role to play in the world nor feel a responsibility to be the shapers of America’s destiny as their parents and grandparents were before them?

            It’s not all kids, of course. Talk to any group of U.S. Marines or soldiers on a Baghdad street, and you’ll see what America’s young men and women can be and can do.    But there’s a disturbing gap separating far too many of our young people from the vast majority of Americans who believe that we are the most privileged people on earth to live in this great country. Call it The Patriotism Gap.

            If we, as a nation, allow this growing cynicism to continue to infect our youngest generations, we put them and our country’s future at risk. And the truth is your children could be next to “fall into The Gap.”

            This books aims to help parents bridge The Patriotism Gap by instilling a healthy love of country in our children. After all, it is part of our responsibility as Americans and as parents to teach our kids what this nation stands for. To teach them to be grateful for all our country gives to her own people and to people around the world. To teach them about the heroes and the history that will make our children proud to be Americans once again.

            We also should help them build the backbone they will need to stand up to those who would harm our country from afar as well as  those critics in schools and in the media, who tell them and teach them over and over again a dark, negative story of America.  Our enemies have been using vast resources to misrepresent our way of life and to indoctrinate their children, whenever and wherever they can, to hate America. Certainly, the least we ought to do is teach our children to value our nation. To put it quite simply: America’s existence as “the shining city on the Hill” really does depend on it.

            But how can we bridge this growing Patriotism Gap in very practical

ways?

            First, to understand it, we’ve got to understand “us”, who we are as Americans.

            Then, we’ve got to understand what’s causing this disconnect, the “Bad Influencers,” as we call them, who are turning our kids off on America.

            And last, parents need to know what they can do about it.  In this book, we provide over 1776 real world ideas and resources including Dinner Table Debates to have with your family and 60 Minute Solutions that can help you find time in your busy schedule to help your children learn to love America.

 

Buy your copy of  How to Raise an American now.