有几个单词和短语经常在我的家庭中，像“安静。”要么 ”shhhhhh“。或者我个人最喜欢的，希伯来“sheket bevakasha“，这很有效soundssevere but actually just means “please be quiet.”
换句话说，我的家人可以在非常不合适的时间认真嘈杂。他们需要经常提醒调下来一点 - 尤其是这几天，当我们all inside我们的局促公寓所有的时间。但是短语“闭嘴”没有在我们的家庭使用，因为我觉得这是不礼貌的，不合适的，不必要的攻击性。
当我的孩子们年轻的时候，偶尔的“闭嘴”他们之间投掷遭到了快捷，公平的后果 - 通常是一个严厉的谈话，或短超时并提醒人们，我们根本就没有在我们的家中使用这些词。
现在我的孩子们变老- 10,几乎13 — and we’ve all been living on top of one another for six months and counting, withschool at homeand literally nowhere to go, I admit there are bad days when I overhear my kids saying “shut up” to one another. These moments, when I catch them, I feel my heart break just a little. I tell them to knock it off — usually my request is met by the offending child providing a revised statement, such as, “Please be quiet, younger brother whom I love so very much” — before I slip my降噪耳机在我的耳朵后面和我一天上车。因为，流行的养育有全职工作。
But then came the first presidential debate of 2020.
In that “一个垃圾箱内火热一塌糊涂火车残骸内” that aired on national television last night, President Trump wasted no time heckling Biden (as well as the moderator, Fox News’ Chris Wallace) — interrupting him, taunting him, and just generally being the ill-mannered bully that everyone knows that he is.
有时，拜登似乎很难得到在沿边一个字。随着时间一分过去了，恶心坑在我的肚子继续流失和成长。然后，当拜登回答有关问题最高法院提名 - 使直接呼吁在主场观众“投票，现在” - 特朗普说持续在他身上，拜登停止。
“Will you shut up, man,” he said, shaking his head.
And before I could even process what happened, an excited “Whoooooooop!” escaped from my mouth.
几乎同时，我问我的反应。我做了我对感情词组的180？我是一个总hypocrite? If I would theoretically punish my kids if they said “shut up” to someone with authority, why did this moment fill me with such glee?
我越想过这个问题，我越意识到有一个时间和刚才的一切的地方，包括“闭嘴。”这显然是永远，曾经appropriate for a kid to say that to a parent or teacher (fortunately, we have yet to encounter this issue); nor is it appropriate to say to your brother when he’s going on and on about aFortnite战役通行证和所有你想做的事就是去睡觉了（呃......无可奉告）。从来没有在我这个星球上几十年我曾经认为，适当的使用“闭嘴”将总统辩论中出现 - 但它是2020年，那么，我们在这里。
作为父母，我们教我们的孩子的第一个也是最重要的事情之一是，我们的语言问题。我们教我们的孩子有爱心，不说伤人的话，那它的必要礼貌点and use simple words like “please” and “thank you.” We remind them that using these words make everyday interactions far more pleasant, and they usually quickly realize employing them is an excellent strategy for getting a grownup to pour them a second glass of juice.
词的重要性也非常犹太人的概念。作为拉比丽贝卡·罗森塔尔在写苹果beplayalmost exactly four years ago, when Trump faced off against Hilary Clinton:
“犹太教告诉我们，你把话外面的世界真的，真的很重要。”
她继续说：“当上帝创造了世界，神使用的话，而不是对象，带给世界应运而生。如果世界能够用语言来创建，也可以与他们破坏“。
罗森塔尔在臭名昭著的泄漏发生后写下这些文字“抢“由猫EM” tape, which Trump and company dismissed as “locker room talk.” (It’s also worth noting that, at the time, most people assumed that a person who would use such vulgar, misogynistic language would not make it to the highest office in the land.)
展望对特朗普的总统回来了，我的胸部收紧，因为我回想起在他的话引起破坏许多情况下。让我们从他的发言开始后，2017年的团结在弗吉尼亚州夏洛茨维尔正确的反弹 - ！“犹太人不会取代我们。”这不得不让人诵经在街头，- 到特朗普评论有“fine people on both sides“。还有他最近的声明中表示，冠状病毒“affects virtually nobody” — actually, 200,000 Americans have lost their lives to Covid-19 — or how, on a recent visit to wildfire-scarred California, he said, “I don’t think science knows,” when it came to acknowledging the role that climate change plays in the devastation.
事实是，我已经变得习惯于这样的东西，我是准备永远不会被任何东西特朗普感到震惊曾经说了一遍。但随后，随着辩论继续，特朗普被要求华莱士谴责白人至上主义和民兵组织，一些总统直率的refused to do。请花一点时间，并让该水槽。
Instead, when pressed, Trump said, “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.” Um, seriously? (Read more about the Proud Boys and their anti-Semitic tieshere。)
在从我们的总统这样可怕的话面前，很容易查看拜登的平静，但明确“闭嘴”的自然反应辱骂的猛攻，报复类似于一个Ewok shooting an arrow在帝国沃克。许多在Twitter称赞拜登声明 - 我个人最喜欢的是如何希拉里自己权衡on the matter — and the memes are making the rounds. The Biden-Harris campaign, for their part, is already selling a “Will You Shut Up, Man”T-shirt。我笑了，当我看到它，但我不打算买它 - 我永远不会穿在我的胸前写着“闭嘴”（同上，并为唐纳德·川普的图像）。
Still, as the saying goes, unprecedented times call for unprecedented measures. And between rising extremism, a pandemic, a climate emergency, and more, this moment is nothing if not unprecedented. At this juncture in the United States of America — where the states are anything but united, and the nature of our democracy is teetering on a dangerous precipice — maybe it’s no longer appropriate nor effective to “go high when they go low.” As much as it pains me for my kids to hear a phrase that we banned in our house used in a presidential debate, we’ve also taught them, again and again, to stand up for what is right.
通过Morry加什 - 普尔/ Getty图像报头的图像
