“Why are kids so mean mom?” Paul Ryan said, calling his Mom Wednesday night, crying. Elizabeth Ryan tried to console her distressed son.
“It’s okay, my special boy, what happened?”
Struggling through his messy tears, Paul said, “They picked on me. They yelled at me in front of everyone. Everyone saw it...” Paul trailed off and broke out into sobs again. Elizabeth sat silently on the other end, waiting for him to quiet down. She knew that her son had a hard time standing up for himself, for anything, actually, but it was still hard to see him struggle so much.
“Mom, they brought up the NRA. They told everyone that I made more money off the NRA than any senator. Don’t they know that I’m SENSITIVE about that?” At the word sensitive, Paul’s voice had heightened in pitch so much that it emitted a nice loud crack, so loud in fact that Elizabeth was reminded of the time Paul struggled through a choir solo his freshman year. She smiled fondly at the memory. Although she hated to see her son so upset, she was happy that he was at least opening up to her. Like any teenager, it’s hard to get your spineless Speaker of the House son to say what was really on his mind.
“...I don’t even want to go work tomorrow. They were so mean. I’m sick of being bullied, Mom.”
Her son’s heartfelt confession made her throat catch. Elizabeth had watched on the television as thousands of teenagers came together on National Walkout Day to protest gun violence and demand gun control in response to the Parkland High School shooting. Despite the majority of the country in favor of gun control, Congress had not yet passed any legislation. She watched the teens yell outside the Capitol, where her son worked. It hurt her to see him in pain, and it felt instinctual to protect him, but she knew that Paul had to figure out this problem on his own.
Timidly, Elizabeth suggested, “Paul, did you ever consider… actually listening to the kids? Maybe you could compromise. Remember when you talked about compromising in your seventh grade health class? You could try talking with your friends from work about some common sense gun control. Maybe invite them over! And I could make you guys macaroni and cheese.”
Paul scoffed. “Wow mom, you really just don’t get it. ”
“-but honey..”
“NO MOM…” his voice cracked again this time as he yelled, “You don’t even listen to me. I can’t COMPROMISE. That would be TOTALLY embarrassing. Do you even realize what everybody would think? What Donald would think? Mitch? Ugh, no one understands me….” The phone line clicked off.
Elizabeth waited to see if her son would call back, and flipped through old photo albums of his greatest achievements. With a faint smile, she realized although times have changed, Paul was, regrettably, still a fifteen year old kid. She sighed and shook her head with a hopelessly loving smile. “Kids these days.”
