“Kids, I need to talk to you.”
The wind whipped the van as we flew past the harvested fields. Whispers of rain hovered in the air, shattering on the windshield as three heads appeared in the rear view mirror.

“I want you to remember something—something important that I don’t want you to ever forget.”

Inquisitive expressions told me they were expecting another lecture about leaving shoes around the house or replacing the toilet paper.

“There will be times in your life where you’ll hear something that sounds good, and you won’t want to question it because you may agree with it. It may be about a historical person, or a historical event, or something recent—but deep down, you know there’s a bias about it that makes it not completely true. You remember talking about the different types of biases, right? Omission of sources, slant, spin, things like that?” Fierce nods told me that they did.

“Good. Because,” I continued, “propaganda is still propaganda even if you agree with it.”

“What’s propaganda?” the youngest one asked, catching my eyes in the mirror.

“Propaganda,” the eldest said, “is like…it’s like when people twist certain facts to make them sound different or worse than what they are. Or they change the message to say what people want to hear.” He listed some examples.

“That’s a pretty good definition. But at the root of propaganda is manipulation: it takes strongly held beliefs and then uses half-truths or lies to stir up emotions in another person. The emotions are so hot or passionate that they don’t even question the information—they just believe it. Propaganda…it keeps an angry fire going inside of a person or group of people so that they can’t think fairly about the other side. It’s never a good thing,” I continued, slowing down for a curve into the town.

I felt a sting of guilt as I pulled the visor down against the morning sun. I should know: I’ve caved to propaganda-thinking more than once. It’s almost impossible not to in this culture.

“A good historian looks at something fairly, from all perspectives. They don’t just accept something because it appeals to their own perspective. Now, I know you guys probably won’t become historians, but this applies to everything: don’t be manipulated into believing something just because it sounds good, or you kind of believe it, or because it comes from a page or channel you follow. Question everything, know those different types of biases, and try hard to be fair about the evidence.” Then for good measure, I added, “Look at the sources of the claims, too. Ok?”

It was a tall order even for an adult, but it earned me a nod, an “Ok, mom”, and even a furrowed, convicted brow and serious “We won’t forget, mom,” from the youngest. I’ve only recently begin discussing source attribution and examination with our eldest, so there would be many more discussions and reminders in the future.

But for today, sunlight streaming against the glass as we turned down the road to our destination, it was enough.