[I intended to post this yesterday, but I didn’t get my
usual computer time. (We had a glorious
family breakfast out, instead!) Please
pardon the verb tenses!]
I’ve been talking to the girls for the last few weeks about
the upcoming election. I know it’s far
too big of a concept for them to really grasp, but I’ve done my best to give
them an understanding of our government at a three-year old level.
The girls know that we’ll be voting for the office of
president. “We are going to vote because
we hope that President Obama can still be the president,” they say.
We’ve talked on a very, very elementary level about some of
the policies that are important to us.
I told the girls that a person’s vote is very important, but
also very private. We are very proud of
our viewpoint, but we respect that other people may make different choices, and
that is OK.
I may have taught them to chant “O-BA-MA! O-BA-MA!” though…which Hubby fears will get
us kicked out of this conservative part of the country. HA!
The girls have already experienced some disillusionment,
though.
The girls’ first disappointment came when they started
talking about meeting President Obama. I
realized they thought he would be at the polling station. When I told them we wouldn’t actually see
him, they didn’t quite understand. “Well
where will he be?” I told them he would
probably be in Chicago. “Well, can we go
there?”
I figured that Baby A could go into the booth with me, and B
with Daddy, and I told them that they could press the button for the president.
The girls were looking forward to their adventure. B was talking through the order of events
yesterday. “Mommy will vote, then Daddy,
then Sissy, then me.”
I then realized I hadn’t fully explained that you have to be
18 years old to vote. When I shared that
with the girls, my tender-hearted Baby B’s chin started to tremble. She thought she would get to vote, too!
(Of course I have to interject that our girls are probably
as well-educated about the issues as some 18-year olds. I think they make pretty sound decisions,
actually!) ;)
Despite the couple of misunderstandings, the girls were
tickled to go vote yesterday morning.
Unfortunately we had paper ballots, so there were no buttons to press,
but Baby A picked out Obama’s name, and she scribbled in the box beside his
name.
Both girls fed our ballots into the scanner, and they were
super proud of their “I Voted” stickers.
They came home and put them on the refrigerator.
“Why do you still have your sticker?” they asked me later in
the day. I talked to them about it being
our civic duty to educate ourselves on the issues and vote for what we believe
in. I tried to underscore it’s something
to be proud of.
And last night they asked when we would know if President
Obama would still be our president. I
told them it would be after they were in bed, and they were OK with that. (Mama, on the other hand, had a very late
night…not content to go to bed until it was official.)
And this morning when the girls got up, I told them, “Guess
what happened last night, baby girls?” “President
Obama!” they exclaimed.
My guess is that their understanding today is no greater
than it was a week ago, but I love having involved them in the election
process.
Not just in this exercise, but every day, my hope is that I’m
raising my girls to have curious minds…who will learn to think for themselves…and
who will ACT with confidence and grace to impact their environments.
