So, on a drive home from a play-date with the daughter of my conservative friends, my seven year old daughter said "Why do I only see McCain signs or Obama signs?" The only time she brings up politics is after playing with this friend, so I was prepared for a discussion.
Me: Well, those are the two choices.
Her: There are only two choices?
Me: Yes. Only two. Pretty weird, huh? That would be like walking into an ice cream store and only being able to order vanilla or ..... I stopped myself. I was headed down the wrong road. Not PC. Not the message I wanted to send. Not coming up with another flavor very fast.
Me: or Strawberry. Just two choices. Or between Chocolate and Strawberry. But just two. That's exactly like our vote. Out of all of the people in our country we choose between two people.
Her: I would vote for chocolate.
Me: (oh, she's smart...) Oh, ya, it's a great flavor, right?
Her: No because of Obama's skin color. I would pick chocolate.
Me: Uh... well, actually I wasn't trying to .... okay. Yep. I would choose chocolate, too. So, you get it right? You could walk into Baskin Robbins and order your choice of 32 flavors. But in the case of an election you get two choices. Chocolate or Vanilla. Not a very good ice cream store, eh?
Her: No. (Now she's bored. Over it. And I'm still thinking.....)
You definitely don't get to choose the ingredients or "mixins" for the perfect candidate, ala Cold Stone Creamery. A well developed, highly successful, equipped with cutting technology, ice cream store with two choices: Vanilla or Chocolate.
Gosh, my girl was onto something.
3 comments:
Sorry, I had to delete because I decided to erase my story about what my son said about illegal mexicans the other day... you're braver than me!
Ha!
That being said, what would you have done if she had wanted to vote vanilla?
No one can dispute my very conservative views, and we watch a fair amount of news (ok, a lot) in our house and so does our son. But, the election and the candidates have never been a topic that he and his buddies 'discuss'. Why does your friend's child feel so strongly about the election? How old is she/he? Wow, childhood is fleeting enough as it is, I sure would wish they could enjoy it more and not worry about government- at least not yet!
My kids are welcome to form their own beliefs. Religious, political, social. If you haven't guessed about me yet, I really am a proponent of allowing other people to be who they are. Without my judgement or involvement. Everyone but Sarah Palin. Ha, I'm kidding. But she is fun to pick on. ;)
As for her friend. I don't know what is going on there. After she plays with her she (both 7) she comes home and says "Mom, [girl] said Obama is BAD. Is he? Her family thinks McCain is good."
I have an issue with that for a few reasons. We don't talk about politics with our kids. The most we have done is put Obama signs up in our yard. They can read.
Secondly, I would never say "Bad or Good" about a politician. I don't say it about kids. Just like ice cream they are different preferences. People that like Vanilla don't make chocolate Bad. People that like chocolate don't make vanilla Bad. That's just not how "truth" works.
I agree. I wish this wasn't a discussion among these two seven year olds. I am much more comfortable with them discussing Hannah Montana's next outfit choice. ;)
I think it's awesome. If that's ALL they were talking about (adult stuff), I'd have a problem with it. They're not talking about stuff that destroys their innocence. They're talking about Life!
We talk politics and such in our house but we're careful to say things we wouldn't mind our kids repeating to other kids who might then tell their parents. Kids still sometimes misquote and that's unfortunate. Fortunately, my older two are good at remembering verbatim. So, I feel comfortable saying things like, "Yes, I think Jack Layton is a liar. But not everyone thinks that."
Anyway, I came on to say that it is really weird that you only have two real choices. Our election ended yesterday and we had five choices. Only three were in the same running but sometimes just one more choice would make all the difference. The downside, however, is that you divide up the vote more and you can wind up with a minority government which we have. So, more people voted Conservative than anything else BUT if you put all the other votes together, more people didn't vote Conservative. So, it makes bills harder to pass and makes it harder to get stuff done in parliament.
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