A couple of months ago, Usha Vance announced a summer reading program for kids in kindergarten through eighth grade, suggesting that promoting reading and literacy might be her platform during her time as second lady. Since then, she has continued to promote the program to children at places like the Ohio State Fair and a camp for Cub Scouts.
Most recently, she headed down to Houston, where she joined forces with Suni Williams — one of the two astronauts who were stranded aboard the International Space Station for more than nine months — to promote reading to children at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
Hundreds of kids joined them on Monday as they talked about the importance of reading. Williams encouraged the kids to “read often and aim high” before introducing the second lady.
Related: Usha Vance Issues an Important Summer Challenge for Your Children
When Vance took the stage, she told the kids that she really enjoyed learning about space and NASA and couldn’t believe that she — and her three children who were waiting nearby — got to hang out with a “real astronaut.” The two women then took turns reading from the picture book “Margaret and the Moon: How Margaret Hamilton Saved the First Lunar Landing,” written by Dean Robbins and illustrated by Lucy Knisley. It tells the story of Hamilton, the real-life software engineer who led the development of the onboard flight software for the Apollo program.
After the reading, the kids got to ask these two women some questions, and they ranged from wanting to know some specific details about what it’s like in space to more general inquiries like “What’s your favorite book?” (I got a little excited when I heard that Mrs. Vance is a big fan of the “Little House on the Prairie” series.)
I won’t bore you with all the questions — I’ll post the video of the entire event below if you’re curious — but I did want to comment on something.
When I first set out to write this story on Tuesday, I realized there wasn’t really enough material to warrant much of an article. I almost scrapped it, but after taking much of yesterday off to run some errands, I revisited it last night, and I still wasn’t sure that it was a strong enough story to make for an entire article, but something prevented me from deleting it and moving on to another topic. Here I am, almost 48 hours after I started, still trying to make it work. But why?
It finally hit me today. It’s wholesome. It made me feel good about this country. Having women like Usha Vance and Suni Williams reading to our children, encouraging kids to dream big about their futures, and serving as general role models for young boys and girls is exactly the type of thing I want to highlight. For years, all we heard about was drag queen story hour, and our second spouse was a sorry excuse for a human being who treated women poorly.
This must truly be the new Golden Age for our country because kids now have access to some of the most brilliant and accomplished women in the world. Mrs. Vance is an attorney, a student of history, the child of immigrants, and a mother raising three young children of her own with the vice president. Mrs. Williams is also the child of immigrants, a former United States Navy officer, a pilot, an incredibly decorated astronaut, and the wife of a federal marshal. They’re living the American Dream. They are proof that anything is possible. They send a positive message to young people by merely existing.
If I had a daughter — or even a son — these are the types of women I’d want my child to look up to, the types of role models I’d want them to aspire to be like… not some guy in a dress reading about gender ideology and inclusivity or whatever, and definitely not Doug Emhoff.
So yes, on the surface, this isn’t the most exciting story, but if you dig a little deeper, you realize it represents this country finally returning to sanity.
And I’ll report on that every chance I get.
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