Barron Trump Needs a Break

As someone who has not been the biggest fan of the current United States president, I get how easy it is to go after Donald Trump’s policies and really, his overall approach to the presidency as a whole. Perhaps one of the most shocking moments of his eight months in office—beyond his apparent support of neo-Nazis and white supremacists as a whole, it seems—is when he admitted that the job of president was far more difficult than he thought it would be. Let’s face it—excoriating Donald Trump for being the pompous, apparently bigoted politician that he is has become easy in no small part due to his unabated tweeting everything from the Saturday Night Live sketches he doesn’t like to policies he’s decided to implement via Twitter.

However, I have a bit of a problem when it comes to going after Trump’s youngest. Barron Trump is now 11 years old and is about to enter grade 6, and to say that life is in a constant state of upheaval for him is probably something of an understatement. The tween years are difficult as it is, but Barron has had to go through a move, endure even more media scrutiny than his father garnered prior to his run for president, and likely put up with a great many comments that have been directed his way simply because of the expression on his face, more often than not.

Now, people are commenting about how Barron Trump was out with his very well dressed parents wearing a graphic tee shirt, a pair of shorts and a pair of suede loafers. They are complaining about the kid dressing like a preteen, as though this is an absolute travesty.

Even though his mother, in particular, appears to have done an outstanding job protecting her boy from media scrutiny ever since President Trump began his run for the White House, Barron Trump still appears to be a favourite target of media pundits everywhere, and I really don’t get it.

The boy is 11.

He may be a part of one of the United States’ richest and best-known families, but he’s also a minor. To anyone’s knowledge, he has not committed any crimes, and he has not been an outspoken loudmouth in the way his older brothers and father have been. In fact, compared to the rest of the Trump clan, Barron appears to practically be a mute, and this is a very good thing. He’s a preteen, and preteens can be notoriously mouthy; he’s never been recorded saying anything untoward or even engaging in anything remotely related to what preteens might really do.

His comparative silence aside, people have got to quit trying to slice and dice Barron Trump. He has no real way of defending himself or even really properly understanding why the public at large enjoy trying to take him apart. Unlike his older siblings, who very clearly understand what they’re saying and how it’s affecting how people perceive them, Barron Trump is still trying to figure out his way in the world, and he should be allowed to do that without being attacked for something as simple as dressing in what really is a common “uniform” for preteens and teens everywhere.

It’s not as though the boy went out, shaved his head into a Mohawk, and had a flaming skull tattoo emblazoned on his shoulder. While it might be fun to consider what his father’s reaction might be to Barron dressing in such a way, we have to remember what we ourselves were like at 11, and treat Barron Trump accordingly.

The boy does not deserve to be considered in the same light as the rest of his family when he has not had the life experience and time to grow that his older siblings have had. He deserves the right to live and dress in the same manner as people his age; his father might be president now, but that does not mean Barron Trump should lose out on the simple pleasures of just trying to be a regular kid.