By Emeri B. Montgomery
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The morning after election night, my 9-year-old daughter woke up with a question.
"Did Texas turn blue?"
Not "good morning, Mama." Election results. This is my child, ladies and gentlemen. The night before, Amaya had been in my home office, circling races on a whiteboard with red and blue markers like a miniature political analyst.
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A few days earlier, she'd watched two American classics for the first time: Gone With the Wind and To Kill a Mockingbird. Neither was exactly light family entertainment. Between slavery, racism, injustice and the complicated realities of the South, both offered plenty for a 9-year-old to think about. But she was captivated.
Of the two, she preferred Gone With the Wind. She loved the sweeping drama, complicated relationships and, apparently, having strong opinions about Scarlett O'Hara.
Scarlett, she declared, was a gold digger who stabbed poor, sweet Melanie in the back. Well, tell us how you really feel, baby.
She enjoyed To Kill a Mockingbird, too. But as we watched these classics together, I found myself seeing them through her eyes. She saw the drama. I saw a parenting lesson. Because, while Amaya was fascinated by Scarlett's antics, I found myself drawn to Scout Finch and her father, Atticus.
Amaya's first concern was why Scout and Jem were allowed to run around outside so late without supervision. Fair question, especially from a child whose mother wants to know where she is at all times. But, as the movie unfolded, I began seeing a little of my daughter in Scout.
Scout was 6, curious about everything and trying to understand a world that didn't always make sense. And Atticus didn't tell her to stay in a child's place. He listened. He explained difficult things in language she could understand. He didn't expect her to grasp every injustice around her, but he didn't underestimate her ability to learn.
Watching him with Scout, I realized something. I don't have to have every answer for Amaya. I just have to make sure she knows she can always come to me with a question. That's the kind of parent I want to be.
Amaya understood that Atticus was doing his job as a lawyer, that the evidence supported his client's innocence and that justice didn't prevail. She didn't need a lecture afterward. She needed room to ask why.
And ask she did. After both films, she Googled the actors, their careers and what became of them. The child likes a good movie, but apparently she also wants a full background check on the cast.
I'm a daughter of the South, born and raised in Louisiana. Amaya was born in Seattle, and now we're raising her in Texas. She's getting a Southern upbringing, including the history that isn't always pretty. She knows that the late Sen. John Lewis is my hero, and why. She's seen the movie Selma and has watched documentaries. When she was 3, we took her to Whitney Plantation in Edgard, Louisiana, where the stories of enslaved people are central. At 4, we visited Washington, D.C., exploring its monuments, museums and the ideals our nation celebrates.
Did she understand everything? Of course not. She was 3. Then 4. But we were planting seeds. Now she can enjoy the costumes and drama of Gone With the Wind while beginning to understand that Hollywood romanticized a plantation world built on slavery. She can watch To Kill a Mockingbird and recognize that a courtroom doesn't always deliver fairness.
I want her to love the South's food, culture and traditions without overlooking its painful history. You can love where you come from without defending everything that happened there. And you can celebrate how far we've come without pretending we're finished.
Look at her friends. They come from different races and backgrounds. They laugh, play, argue over the usual childhood nonsense and make up again. Their differences aren't barriers to friendship. What once required generations of Americans to fight for is simply part of her everyday childhood. And I hope she never takes that for granted.
Scout and Amaya may be generations apart, but their curiosity is timeless. Thankfully, the South my daughter is growing up in is not the same one Scout knew.
That's progress worth appreciating. I want her to respect people whose lives look nothing like hers, even when she disagrees with them. Heck, she's 9. Most days, she doesn't even agree with me. Which brings me back to election night.
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"Have they called Mississippi yet?" she asked, wandering into my office.
Not yet, baby. I explained why Scott Colom's Senate campaign mattered: a victory would make him Mississippi's first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction, the period after the Civil War. Suddenly the history we'd discussed around Gone with the Wind had a connection to the news on my screen.
Mississippi, however, was taking its sweet time counting ballots. Maybe, I told her, they were counting the way we learned as children.
One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi.
Maybe that's why it was taking so long. She followed the results a little longer and soon left to play with her dolls. And that's childhood. One minute, a potentially historic Senate race. The next, Barbie has her own drama to sort out. As it turned out, Mississippi really was taking its sweet time. More than a week after Election Day, the results finally came in. Colom won. History was made. Parts of the old South faded again. Mississippi had flipped blue, just like Texas.
Some parents keep young children away from the news. I understand. The world can be frightening, and not every subject is appropriate at every age. But I work in news, from home. Amaya has grown up wandering into my office, spotting headlines and asking questions. Sometimes I answer. Sometimes I say a subject can wait. Sometimes I tell her Mama is working and she needs to go find something else to do.
I'm not trying to raise a little political pundit or an activist. I'm raising a child who can think for herself, care about others and ask why things are the way they are. I think of Atticus listening to Scout. He didn't have to hand her the weight of the world to help her understand a little more of it. Neither do I.
Amaya is still nine. She has dolls to play with, movies to discover and plenty of questions ahead. I won't always have the answers, but I want her to know I'll listen. Call it woke if you want. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. My daughter will be informed.
Emeri B. Montgomery is Newsweek's Director of Homepage Operations.
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