Potus

It started over a week ago, late at night in the hills, while I overlooked a city blanketed in a rare fog. I was brooding over the choices we have left for President and began conversing with myself about the state of the world. I thought out loud: “ Why don’t I run? Then, without skipping a beat, I asked myself, “What would my platform be?”

The ideas came pouring out of me and I quickly resolved to run my platform based on 2 philosophies: 1) If you have a child, then you have to be able to take care of it and 2) in exchange for your place on this earth, you have to grow one crop.

This is where I would start, with a collective and universal intention to honor our children and the earth: the fundamentals of our society and our survival. We would ultimately spend less money on programs that punish or mask the problem for those who would be affected. For example, when a child grows up feeling loved, protected and nourished, they are less likely to be depressed and that means that there is no need for the drugs that are used to combat this condition. Take away the root of the problem, i.e. feeling lost, alone and abandoned, and plant seeds that nurture and inspire love.

We would accomplish this by helping women see a specific perspective: it’s not okay to be with a man who has no intention of taking care of mother and child. If you are going to give life to a child, then you need to focus your full attention on that human being in order for them to fully develop and, ultimately, be able to live their own lives. When women have to work outside the home and raise a child, success is nearly impossible. Certainly, there are some superwomen out there! However, mothers should not have to work outside the house until the child is attending school, because the child will suffer from the mother not being present.

That said, Fathers will have to be able to provide and protect mother and child so that they can concentrate on their journey. We need to help fathers see how important their role is as providers and protectors and show them that they should take pride in that honor.

Furthermore, we need to ensure that it is parents, as opposed to nannies, who are the one’s raising their children. In marriage and family therapist Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s book, “In Praise of Stay-At-Home Moms,” conversations are started about internal struggles that women have when deciding to stay home and how that decision impacts their marriage and benefits their kids. Dr. Schlessinger’s writing also raises an important question: If nannies are raising children, why do parents even have them? Considering the implications of this questions, it is easy to conclude that parents should take on the responsibility of raising their own children.

Indeed, parents naturally have the intelligence, intuition and means to breed love in their home in a manner that protects, inspires, and nurtures children. In this type of environment, children will grow up to be loving and decent people, equipped with the tools to create their own life and fly solo by the time they reach 18. And, isn’t this the true prize of life: raising the next generation full of happy, well-loved human beings!

Accomplishing this culture shift would necessitate programs that support long maternity leaves and that teach creative thinking about restructuring how children and mothers bond, grow and flourish during those years. However, if we put importance on the deep bond between mother and child, I have no doubt that this would be possible.

Beyond creating this change for mothers and children, under my presidency, every human being in the United States will have to grow at least one crop in exchange for his place here. Grow what you love to eat in the space you occupy. If you live in a 30 story high rise you can still plant herbs inside or ask to plant something in your friend’s garden or pitch in with a community garden.

If you take from this earth, you must give back and learn how to grow food. This one ritual of growing food will breed gratitude in all other areas of life.

Side note, I promise that any money I would receive for campaigning would be put directly into use for building and developing schools and programs. And maybe…I would give every child a dog to love, feed, exercise and train

So tell me, if you were going to run for the President of the United States, what would your platform be?