A year or two ago one of the kids was getting really interested in history, and the presidents, and the history of the presidents, and donkeys vs. elephants, etc. I remembered seeing some mugs at our favorite dinnerware/glassware store, and as we were passing by the store one day I decided to run in and get the mugs -- I bought one of each. Keenly proud of my balanced they-will-choose-for-themselves-position I unwrapped the mugs to show my husband.
"That's not being balanced," he smirked, "Look at who they chose -- it's the Democrats' all-stars against the Republicans' rogue's gallery." What?
Lesson learned: everybody has an angle.
We were in a taxi once and while I couldn't hear what was on the radio to prompt the conversation, I certainly heard what the taxi driver -- a young man with an accent that indicated that he was not born in the U.S. -- turned around and said to the kids and me: "I don't understand these Christians who tell me that I have to be patient and wait until I understand the big picture regarding Jesus Christ. They haven't given Obama any time at all. People who always say, 'Be patient and see' should be patient and see." NYC teaches. My point: when it teaches -- or anything/anybody teaches -- I want the kids to hear. I want them to be able to see the brilliant and the ridiculous within both parties. The majority of our church community is very conservative, and I hope that its young congregationalists can hear any sound political principals from those church members as well. In fact, we have a very close family friend out west running for a political office on the Republican ticket and we firmly believe that he should win. We cannot vote for him obviously, but we have watched his little campaign video several times and we talk about the good things that he could do -- our collective fingers are crossed.
Critical thinkers vs. rabid constructs; believers in checks and balances vs. filibusters and blocks; advocates for reaching across the aisle... etc. The mug that the favorite dishware store came out with most recently is the one we want to have...
Today The Girl asked pertinent questions all day like, which candidate has a dog (funny how an innocent kid's question could actually be so loaded), and she said that she wasn't sure if she didn't know who to vote for, or if she didn't really care. Her honesty was respected. I found out the moment that I stumbled out of my bedroom that The Boy was firm in his decision... he had made us all breakfast:
Yes, that's President Obama standing on a podium.
More than the specifics of this election, we talked about broader issues. We discussed how lucky we are that today isn't a day when we have to be worried about violence. We also spent a good deal of time talking about the right to vote. We have a 17-year old in our midst who will now wait four more years before she gets to weigh in for a president, but how fortunate she is that she can look forward to that.
For as long as the kids can remember I've worn a pin on election day that my Grandma gave to me:
It's a replica of the pin given by Alice Paul to the suffragists who had been put in prison. Grandma had read about the pin and wondered aloud to a friend whether any pins had survived. Her friend found out that at least one had and was donated to the Framingham Historical Society and it, in conjunction with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, made and sold replicas. She gifted my Grandma with one of those replicas and Grandma proudly wore it every year when she volunteered at the election polls (after we always talked on the phone, and she would tell me what recipe she used for the potluck the volunteers participated in). The kids love it when I wear the pin on election day, and will start reminding me about it the week before.
I read a great book to them that I bought at the Westward Expansion Memorial gift shop in St. Louis. I was surprised at how into it they got. We studied a timeline and saw that it was 300 long years from the Mayflower to women getting the vote... when 1920 finally came The Boy pumped his fists in the air and shouted, "Yeah, yeah, yeah!" (Though, he did raise his eyebrows in a roguish way when we read the bit about husbands acquiring all the land and possessions of their wives...) The book made me cry -- which completely took me off guard because the illustrations are hideous. Here's how it ends: "The fight had lasted seventy-two years -- so long that only one woman from the Seneca Falls Convention was still alive." Sojourner Truth and Elizabeth Cady Stanton died without ever voting, and Susan B. Anthony only did once (by talking a voting inspector into letting her), but she was arrested and fined (she never paid). The amount of effort and energy that people put into causes is inspiring. We liked the roles played by some key people: Abigail Adams wrote the prophetic letter to her husband (who was rather a dud about it), Frederick Douglas saved the day at the convention, and Harry Burn, who was a Tennessee lawmaker, helped make the (very close) decision on August 18, 1920: "In his pocket was a letter from his mother. 'Hurrah! And vote for suffrage.'" That's good stuff. We then watched the suffragette song from Mary Poppins -- the kids were like: woa... that's what that's about???
It's been a full day. The kids watched the Charlie Brown movie that we have while I made dinner, and then when The Dad came home we all went down together to vote. The Girl went with me and fed my sheet through the scanner and Judd the Red Chicken went with The Dad. I have to say that I'm sad about the new-fangled voting process. Four years ago we went into an area and pulled a curtain around us and then, after pushing all of our little levers into place, the kid got to pull (took two hands) the huge red handle that created a very satisfying sound. Oh well -- everything changes (or it doesn't).
We made root beer floats from the special edition presidential candidate root beer we bought on our trip... and the boy vomited it up all over the bathroom floor. I'm trying to hold out to see what happens in Florida or Ohio, but I have to say that I'm fading fast...
