As people are still digesting the results of this week’s Presidential election I thought I’d post a couple of times related to some moments that were part of my “election experience.” Before I start, I should state that as a member of a religious missionary order (RMO) I am under guidelines that set some limits as to what I post about or express about candidates or political parties and the like. So you won’t get much here from me as to my feelings about one candidate versus another.
I will only say that I’m glad I voted a week before the election or else my vote may have been swayed completely by Obama’s shout out to the Chicago Bears and potential Defensive Player of the Year Peanut Tilman without any other personal values or beliefs factoring in at all (just kidding for you all who can’t joke about voting).
But this year I decided to NOT tell my seven year old daughter who I voted for too. She came home one day and was asking who I was going to vote for and told me that she knew who I should vote for and that he was going to win. I decided then and there that I wouldn’t tell her (though down the road I look forward to sitting down and talking about different things).
Here’s my thinking – whether you agree or disagree. She was starting to drink the Christian school kool-aid, despite the fact that her and her friends are all 7 years old and have no idea what the issues are or what’s going on. I remember a mock election in 1984 when I was at this same school. Reagan/Bush beat Mondale/Ferraro by a final tally of 24 – 2. Those two were viewed as lepers (kind of). I remember wondering “What’s wrong with them?” or feeling bad for them that they were on the loser’s side and clearly they were wrong.
It’s cool to teach kids about the electoral process. I love that. Despite being non-political in my disposition and in light of my vocation, I do have a B.A. in Political Science. I want my kids to learn and appreciate the process. But my daughter is not old enough to digest the realities of the big issues. She can’t fully understand the debate about abortion and the difference between first term or third term abortions or if there is a difference at all. She doesn’t understand the dynamics of ethnic marginalization and issues of poverty and racism in this country. She doesn’t understand “big government” and she doesn’t understand “small government.” She doesn’t understand the complex international issues and our role in an interdependent global economy.
She does understand the national debt. Explaining to her that our country has to borrow money from other countries and we aren’t paying it back, she said pretty quickly “Oh, That’s Bad.” Out of the mouths of babes.
My wife and I have a lot of power in our kids’ lives. That’s not a bad thing. We’re parents. We need to steward it well. We can use our influence to indoctrinate her – where her convictions and commitments are formed prior to her capacity to think about why she should have those convictions. Or we can guard against all forms of kool-aid drinking and myopia and begin to teach her to think for herself and not just go with what’s all around her – whether they are ultra conservative or crazy liberal.
My daughter’s political education is only beginning. But lesson number one is not to just jump on the bandwagons of either the most powerful people in your life or the bandwagons of the really anxious people in your life trying to scare the heck out of you about what may happen if the wrong person wins (even if there are kernels of truth to the arguments).
It annoyed her greatly when I wouldn’t tell her, but I think it was developmental for her. Her “certainty” that this was a black or white proposition dissipated pretty quickly and she started asking more questions. It was probably developmental for me too – to exercise self-control and put my daughter’s development ahead of any desire to just get her to think like me. Imagine if we all had this kind of help as we were learning to make decisions.
I don’t know how my kids will end up voting down the road – but I hope they have the maturity, intelligence, and values to think for themselves and vote accordingly no matter what kind of hysteria and political dysfunction is taking place around them.