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Family Politics

Kids and Politics

I’m not surprised this happened, though I’ll cop to a little surprise at the early age.

On the way home from soccer practice today, the boy asked “Dad, who are you voting for, President Obama or the other guy?”

Before I could answer, he continued “My friend at school said that the other guy wants to make the rich richer and also wants to go to war, so he’s voting for President Obama because he wants to make the rich poorer and the poor richer and he doesn’t want to start any wars.” Except for the “My friend” part, where he actually named his friend, the quote is pretty much verbatim.

I thought for a moment and said, “Well, I don’t think your friend knows what he’s talking about. Mitt Romney wants to make everyone richer and, to the best of my knowledge, doesn’t want to start any wars. Though, I think he’d be willing to fight if he was forced to.” I actually know the friend in question pretty well. He’s a smart kid, with a pretty good imagination. My guess is he was repeating talking points his parents had spoken to him.

“You mean like in karate? Where you don’t go looking for a fight but sometimes you have to?” he asked.

“Yes, that’s it exactly.”

“So are you going to vote for Romney?” he asked again.

“Yes, I will.”

“I am to,” he said. Then, amusingly, he add “I was going to vote for him anyway, before you said it. I was just curious what you were going to do.”

I’m well aware that kids almost overwhelmingly adopt the politics of their parents. Having them, it’s obvious why- what else could they have to base that kind of decision on?

Then, the boy asked me another question: “Why are you voting for Mitt Romney?”

Somewhere, when he reads this, the boy’s Grandfather is smiling. Not so much about Mitt Romney, but more because he seems to be taking an interest in politics.

Going back to the boy’s question, I was trying to figure out a good way to answer him. Something that he could understand, sort of at least. Ultimately, I figured that the answer had to be suitably generic. So I told him “President Obama wants the government involved in our lives more, Mitt Romney doesn’t. I don’t want the government involved in my life anymore than it already is. I think it does too much, and most of it not very well. There are other people who disagree with that, but that’s my opinion.”

The boy nodded in agreement, which made me smile. Not in a “good, he’s following my lead” sort of way, rather in a “like he really knows what any of what I just said means” sort of way. He was having an “adult” conversation with Dad, so he was enjoying it.

I’m not really in the habit of telling the boy what to think when it comes to stuff like this. The lass either. I have no expectation that he should follow my lead, or unblinkingly mimic my own reasoning. I want him to be his own man someday, and to do that I have to teach him to think: to gather data and then make a guess as to what that data might mean. When it comes to politics, there’s so much to it that he can’t possibly think for himself on it. I realize that my own opinions will feed his own future opinions, perhaps serving as a baseline. My hope is that he’ll question all of that someday and come to his own conclusions as a result.

If they comport with my own views, so much the better.

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