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Next week, my son is supposed to take the classic 7th-grade trip to Washington, D.C. — a rite of passage for so many American students. He’s been counting the days: standing beneath the Lincoln Memorial, visiting the Capitol, and most of all, seeing the original Constitution and Declaration of Independence at the National Archives.
We’ve always believed it’s important for our kids to see these places and artifacts with their own eyes — not just to read about them in textbooks but to feel the weight of their promise. We want them to understand what it means to live in a democracy where freedom, equality, and justice are not just ideals but rights worth protecting. That’s what I’ve tried to instill in my children: that patriotism doesn’t mean blind loyalty — it means loving your country enough to demand it live up to its highest principles.
But now, I’m not so sure what version of America we’re sending our children to experience.
This week, former President Donald Trump issued an executive order disturbingly titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” It’s a blatant attempt to whitewash history, silence dissent, and reshape how future generations learn about the country they live in. It directs federal agencies — including the Smithsonian Institution — to scrub exhibits he deems “divisive” or “anti-American.” And we know exactly what that means: anything that tells the truth about racism, sexism, or the long, unfinished struggle for civil rights in this country.
Let’s be clear: this isn’t about preserving history. It’s about erasing it.
These pieces of history — symbols of our democracy that generations of Americans have looked to for hope and guidance—are being treated like political trophies, stolen and hidden by someone who has shown open contempt for the values they represent.
He’s not protecting history. He’s weaponizing it.
This move is a blatant act of Trump doing exactly what he accuses others of: rewriting the story of America to fit a narrative of his own making. He is attempting to remove these things from their rightful place at the center of our civic understanding and instead wield them as props in his own political theater. As if the Constitution were his to control. As if he alone gets to decide who counts as American — and whose history gets erased.
It’s the same pattern we’re seeing again and again: strip away truth, consolidate power, and claim ownership over what is supposed to be shared. First it’s restricting information. Then it’s our history and our stories. Next, it’s democracy itself.
This executive order specifically targets the stories of women and people of color—stories that have long been pushed to the margins and are only now beginning to take their rightful place at the center of our national narrative. These are the stories that help our children understand who we are, how far we’ve come, and how far we still have to go.
To censor those stories in the name of “patriotism” isn’t just dishonest — it’s dangerous.
Our children don’t need a sugarcoated version of America. They need the truth. They need to learn about Harriet Tubman and César Chávez, about Japanese internment camps and Jim Crow, about Stonewall and Standing Rock — not to make them feel ashamed, but to help them understand that democracy is a living thing that requires constant work, constant vigilance, and constant courage.
As a mom, I’m furious. As the President of the National Parents Union, I’m deeply alarmed. And I know I’m not alone.
Parents across the country are watching this administration use executive power to tell our kids what they’re allowed to know — and what they’re not. That should scare every single one of us. Because if we let one man decide what parts of our history are too “divisive” to teach, then we’re no longer living in a democracy. We’re living in a curated myth, crafted for political convenience and control.
Washington, D.C., used to be the place we brought our children to witness democracy in action—to see both its grandeur and its imperfections, to learn that it’s something we build and protect together. We want them to see the National Archives and understand the Constitution not just as paper behind glass, but as a living promise they have a role in upholding.
Now, we’re forced to ask: what will they even see?
Will they visit a museum where Rosa Parks’ story has been edited out? Will they be told that the fight for civil rights was a footnote, not a cornerstone? Will they walk through a city that once stood for democratic ideals, only to find those ideals under siege?
This executive order is not about patriotism—it’s about propaganda. It’s about turning history into a political weapon and indoctrinating our children into a version of America that never was. And if we allow this to happen quietly, we are complicit in the theft of our shared truth.
Let me be clear: parents will not stand for it.
Our children deserve the whole story—its brilliance and its brutality—because they are the ones who will write the next chapter. They deserve access to the truth, not a curated fantasy designed to serve one man’s ego. They deserve to inherit a democracy that still belongs to them—not one that’s being quietly dismantled and repackaged behind closed doors.
Next week, I’ll be sending my son to Washington, D.C. — not because I’m confident in what he’ll find, but because I’m not quite sure what will be left for him to witness if he doesn’t take advantage of the opportunity right now, and maybe also because I hope that he’ll be prepared to fight when it’s his generation’s turn to lead. We may be running out of time to show our children what democracy looks like—before it becomes something they only read about in whitewashed textbooks and tightly controlled exhibits.
