New York School Giving Kids Day Off to Recover from Election—but What About the Adults?

I’ve seen two distinct forms of “safe spaces” over the past year. The first is one of those ubiquitous bomb shelters in Israel that you must rush into when a siren lets you know a terror rocket is on the way. Those shelters are made of reinforced concrete and are built in one piece without columns or beams. The outer walls are at least 25 centimeters thick and the inner walls at least 20 centimeters.

I’ve been in those shelters when bombs were falling. It’s the strangest sensation to feel you’re actually in a safe space at that moment.

I came across another kind of safe space this week when I saw that a private school in New York City is providing services for students experiencing “election anxiety.” Evidently, the Ethical Culture Fieldston School — which costs $65,540 a year — announced that it will make attendance optional on the Wednesday after Election Day for “students who feel too emotionally distressed.”

I couldn’t resist wondering what those students would do on Wednesday to relieve their election anxiety. Play video games? Read Shakespeare? Get on Instagram or TikTok? Just stay in their rooms and cry?

I know what to do when I’m in a bomb shelter in Israel—I sit still and pray that they’re not sending bombs that may cut through the reinforced concrete.

But what about when the bombs are news reports on the U.S. elections? How should students and other Americans protect themselves from the result of a presidential election?

What kind of result, you ask? Are you serious? Is there any doubt that the protective worry warts at Fieldston are only worried about a Trump victory?

And how can you blame them? Given that the Harris campaign backed by the mainstream media has been calling Trump a modern version of Hitler who is a serious threat to our democracy, what did we expect? Why should the Fieldston students not be in shpilkes if Trump wins?

After all, isn’t a Hitler in the White House at least as dangerous as a Hamas rocket falling on Tel Aviv?

It’s easy for me to poke fun at the “safe space” phenomenon that has swept through our culture in recent years, especially with college students complaining about microaggressions. But that’s already been well covered. Books have been written on how we’re raising a fragile generation constantly on the lookout for anything that will offend them or hurt their feelings.

This election, though, is different. Here it is us, the adults, who have been assaulting our kids with incendiary and terrifying language in our zeal to have our political team win.

Imagine those students at Fieldston who learn about the Holocaust one day and then see on the news that one of the candidates is a “Nazi” who hosted a Nazi-like rally at Madison Square Garden?

I’d be full of anxiety as well.

So here’s my suggestion for whoever will be in charge of relieving the students’ emotional distress on Wednesday and beyond: Tell them the truth.

Tell them that the grown-ups in America have a tendency to lose their minds when they want their candidate to win. Tell them they will say and do virtually anything to beat the other team, including flinging the harshest insults up to and including Hitler.

If the kids respond by asking their elders why they couldn’t tone down the hysterics and set a better example, I’m hoping the grown-ups will listen and start learning from the kids.

So yes, the Fieldston school needs a day off on Wednesday— for all the parents, teachers and school leaders who must answer to the students for the ugliest, nastiest election season in modern history, where the search for truth became a lonely bystander.

For the lethal verbal bombs we routinely launch every day in our zeal to win political wars, there are no bomb shelters.