In April 1960 I was one of four Pennsylvania delegates to the National 4-H Conference in Washington, D.C. Two hundred 4-H’ers spent a week there attending workshops and and touring the city. One day we were bused to the White House lawn to meet President Eisenhower.

At that time I was 17--unable to vote for four more years--but I considered myself a liberal Democrat. I thought Ike had betrayed the Hungarian Revolution, and I couldn't abide his Vice President. My mom didn’t like him either. In ‘52 and ‘56 she was a campaign volunteer for Stevenson.

So how did I feel standing on the White House lawn a few feet from the President? I was both honored and awestruck. How did my mom feel when she heard about the meeting? She was amazed and pleased.

A Yale professor, Fred Greenstein, questioned New Haven school children in the 1950s for a political socialization study. In an article entitled “The Benevolent Leader,” Greenstein noted that 1st and 2nd graders often confused the President with God.

Contrast those days with the present, when a six-year-old boy asked President Obama, “Why does everybody hate you?” Or when millions of parents refuse to allow their children hear the President tell them to study hard and stay in school.

It is quite appropriate to disagree with a president’s legislative proposals and priorities, but when children are taught to belittle or even hate governors or congress members or the President, that contempt will carry over into their adult lives. When the President is compared to Stalin or Hitler, that is not normal political discourse; rather it is the undermining of governmental legitimacy. It is dangerous for the future of the country and for a republican form of government. Parents should know better.

Roy Christman