Patriotism starts at home, so teach your children well

OPINION:

American citizenship is being unmade in schools and on social media before our very eyes. It is unlikely to survive unless Americans of good faith find a way to reconnect with their country.

If a sense of American citizenship is to be restored, then the American people must take the lead themselves. Parents especially must inoculate their children (much the same way they have their children inoculated against viruses) against identity politics and the idea that America was built on a foundation of racism, exploitation or, most insidiously, “settler colonialism.”

Parents can take guidance from America’s greatest statesman, Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln saw the need for a “political religion,” what we would today call civic education, to support the institutions of free government. Perhaps more than any other American leader, he understood the relationship between patriotism and democracy. He also understood that America is fundamentally a creedal country, bound together by the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

Absent this creed, it is nothing special.

Borrowing from Deuteronomy 6, Lincoln urged parents to diligently teach children a love of country and respect for its laws from a young age.

Though today’s mothers and fathers may be extremely busy, even overextended parents can embrace their roles as their children’s first teachers. They can push back against the current culture by incorporating patriotism into family traditions and rituals, and in their celebration of national holidays.

For example, on July Fourth, read aloud the Declaration of Independence (especially its second sentence, starting with “WE hold these Truths to be self-evident … ”) or watch the wonderful movie “1776” to better appreciate the radical triumph of John Adams and the Second Continental Congress in achieving independence.

On Thanksgiving, consider adding more ritual to the meal, including reading aloud excerpts from the diary of William Bradford, governor of Plymouth Colony. The diary recounts the Pilgrims’ struggles and fears, their powerful thirst for religious liberty, and the indispensable role of Squanto and the Wampanoag tribe in making that first Thanksgiving possible.

Thanksgiving also can be a time to tell your own family’s story of America. When and why did your ancestors come here? What were their early struggles? If they were forcibly brought here as enslaved people, then tell their stories of perseverance and overcoming with pride.

American Indians did not arrive with the mountains and lakes either; they migrated to this great land and faced challenges and triumphs that are woven into America’s tapestry.

Parents should encourage their children to read great American literature that has helped make us who we are as a people — books such as “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” Willa Cather’s “My Antonia,” and the autobiographies of Benjamin Franklin and Frederick Douglass.

They also should read out loud with their children Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address,” which in just 272 words captures America’s exceptional character.

They should consider adding age-appropriate classic American Westerns to family movie night. The American Western — classics like “Shane,” “The Searchers,” “The Virginian” and, our favorite, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” — is as close as we’ll ever come to Homer’s epic Greek poetry, capturing what makes America exceptional and the traits unique to American citizens.

Other movies that should give children a sense of pride in the American story — its people, its institutions, its highest purposes and its struggles to realize them — include “Born Yesterday,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and “It’s a Wonderful Life,” as well as more historical dramas such as “Glory” and “Gettysburg.”

For younger children, find DVDs of the PBS series “Liberty Kids.” Also, American folk songs gave us a common vernacular and made excellent lullabies such as “Down in the Valley” and “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,” as well as Black spirituals, such as “This Little Light of Mine.” Sing them to your little ones when you put them to bed at night.

For today’s cynical Americans, taught to sneer at the idea of love of country and deride the notion of America’s greatness, these suggestions may appear naive, but naivete can be the beginning of wisdom.

Let us remember that history’s most famous cynic, the Greek philosopher Diogenes, who lived in squalor and depended on the largesse of curious passersby to eat, also had no use for patriotism. Diogenes was a clever rhetorician, but those at whom he poked fun built and defended a great civilization. Let us not be ashamed of being American citizens.

• Benjamin Ginsberg, the David Bernstein professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University, and Dorothea Israel Wolfson, managing director of the Washington-based Hertog Foundation, are co-authors of “The Unmaking of American Citizenship: How Americans Learned Not to Love Their Country and What Can Be Done About It” (Routledge, 2025).