(The cutie with the balloon is not yet old enough to vote, let alone run for office, so leave her off the ballot!)

A few weeks ago I noticed the non-stop chat of a bunch of tween girls in the back of my van had veered to a topic that I recognized, politics. “Who would you vote for?” was the question. The answers came readily from the mouth of each of them. At the next light (safety first!) I spun creakily and interferingly around and asked “Why would you vote for so-and-so? What made up your mind?” And with a brief pause, probably to roll their eyes secretly at me, all three of them agreed it was because that is who their parents were going to vote for.

When I was a kid, I remember asking my mom who she would vote for during the 1976 Ford/Carter elections. What she told me then was that voting was a private thing and no one had to tell anyone else who they voted for. That’s why the booths were shielded and covered in kryptonite. This way no one could guilt or strong-arm anyone else in to voting for who they wanted. I have no idea why this was such an issue with her at the time, except maybe that my dad was planning to vote republican and she was going to go democrat. Maybe she wasn’t in the mood for dinner debates. But I have no recollection of there ever being political friction in my house and at the time I was taken aback by her answer. So, elections were affairs requiring secrecy?

As a grown up, some of that message still hold true for me. I do discuss politics in depth with my family and friends, but overall I don’t ever feel the need to reveal my way of thinking to perfect strangers on most things, let alone in politics and religion. This is something I feel very resolute about and always have. My beliefs are private. Part of the reason being that I feel as if it would be impolite to assume that anyone else thinks like you, and even ruder to imply that they should. The flipside of that is maybe that I don’t want people to judge me on platitudes but rather on who I am as a whole. I have met so many people who have vastly different religions or backgrounds than I who are wonderful and wouldn’t want to decide they were otherwise based on stereotyping them. One exception I have in politics is if I feel something is so wrong that it should be protested. Anyway, no need to point out how ironic it is that I will blog about the most mundane details of my day and yet not about my beliefs. I know, but it makes sense to me when I break it down to the why and when. That said, I have a very deep respect and awe of political bloggers. They have done so much to open up politics to us plebes.

Anyway, at home our politics are on our sleeves because I think it makes for great dinner debates and reveals a lot about how the world works. But when every kid in my car said they’d vote whatever their parents would vote I felt that maybe my mom wasn’t so far off with her secret candidate support of 1977. (By the way, she is no longer quiet about who she supports!)

But maybe there is another way. To me the goal for our family is the same our forefathers had for our democracy; to get to think for ourselves. Of course I hope that my values come across and that they decide to think like I do! But I don’t just want them to trustingly accept the way I think about big issues and ideas. I want them to get there by their own brain power, maybe with some guidance, sure, but I welcome doubts and debate in this process. So,I told the tweens that day how I felt about it. I said “Its good you trust your parents choices because I know all of your parents and they’ve all made good choices for you. But you’re getting older too and although in the end you might agree with them, choosing to like a candidate because your mom does isn’t the same as understanding all of the candidates on your own. Ideally, you’ll research the candidates and learn what they hope to accomplish as President. You’ll be voting in a few years.” Or something like that, but nicer. I do know their parents very well by the way, and I know they would have approved of that message. The kids all agreed and shared amongst themselves what they did know about the candidates and the dialog at their houses about who was running and what they thought. It was obvious they come from politically savvy homes.

A few days later, I was at a friend’s house and she had these pictures of all the candidates running up on her wall and it seemed like an awesome plan to steal, so we did. I can’t say that we’ve gone in depth on all of their hot buttons and issues and histories since then, but at least now the kids can recognize all of the runners and enjoy keeping track of who is dropping out.

These posters prompted our friends to request that we have a mock primary, which we solemnly held two nights ago, collecting votes in a hat. This has sparked much more interest in the real primary.

Anoif stayed up with me until 11pm last night trying to await news from the California delegates. She got to hear Clinton, McCain and Obama’s speeches before she succumbed to exhaustion. She had this awesome day with her girl scout troop, they went skiing, then she had gymnastics for 2 hours, so she drifted off mumbling about how inspiring their speeches were. When she fell asleep leaning against me on the couch she was breathing so deeply I knew she wasn’t having nightmares about any elections.