politicizing
May. 7th, 2007 04:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mamajoanA few weeks ago there was an election (actually a preliminary) in my town. If you've been obsessively following my LJ you may recall me mentioning a while back that a state legislator had died, and we had an election to replace him, and then we had another election to replace the woman who was elected to replace him, and so forth...So, I believe the current election is the latest in this chain. We're electing a new alderman (alderperson?) to the board. The preliminary election was April 10th and since it was so close, there'll be a runoff next week.
I went through a lot of contortions that day trying to figure out whether to go to the polling place before or after work, and how to manage dropoff/pickup of both kids in coordination with voting. (If we go before work then I have to get us all up super-extra-early. But if we go after work then they'll both be hungry and I'll be tired. And so forth.)
In the end we went to vote in the evening after work, and I brought extra snacks for Isaac, and left work a little early so that I could sit and nurse Ruthie for a few minutes at the nanny's house before we went. And it worked out fine.
But it wasn't until afterward that it occurred to me that I could have just left work early and gone to the polling place by myself and then gotten the kids and taken them directly home. That would have been SO much simpler, and yet, it honestly just did not occur to me. I'm just fully committed to taking the kids to the polling place with me every time I vote, because I consider it so important for them to observe and participate in the democratic process.
On this particular occasion, as Isaac was helping me put the ballot into the machine, one of the staff members there made a comment -- I can't remember exactly what she said, but it was something to the effect of how big Isaac and Ruthie are getting. In other words, she remembered them from the last time(s) that we came there to vote. I've thought about this a bit and at first I thought it was odd, she must see so many people, she remembers us? Then I thought, well, it's a small town and a small voting district so maybe she really doesn't see all that many people.
Eventually I realized, though, that these are probably the only -- or some of the very few -- kids that she sees at the polling place. (I'm pretty sure she does also see![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gosling and ceo's Benjamin as well though.) Probably they get so many boring ol' grownups shuffling through there ;) that the occasional kid is a breath of fresh air, so to speak.
Voting is such an interesting combination of a duty, a right, and a privilege. How does one convey the complexity thereof to a child? Well, you start by simply exposing them to the process. The rest can flow from there.
I went through a lot of contortions that day trying to figure out whether to go to the polling place before or after work, and how to manage dropoff/pickup of both kids in coordination with voting. (If we go before work then I have to get us all up super-extra-early. But if we go after work then they'll both be hungry and I'll be tired. And so forth.)
In the end we went to vote in the evening after work, and I brought extra snacks for Isaac, and left work a little early so that I could sit and nurse Ruthie for a few minutes at the nanny's house before we went. And it worked out fine.
But it wasn't until afterward that it occurred to me that I could have just left work early and gone to the polling place by myself and then gotten the kids and taken them directly home. That would have been SO much simpler, and yet, it honestly just did not occur to me. I'm just fully committed to taking the kids to the polling place with me every time I vote, because I consider it so important for them to observe and participate in the democratic process.
On this particular occasion, as Isaac was helping me put the ballot into the machine, one of the staff members there made a comment -- I can't remember exactly what she said, but it was something to the effect of how big Isaac and Ruthie are getting. In other words, she remembered them from the last time(s) that we came there to vote. I've thought about this a bit and at first I thought it was odd, she must see so many people, she remembers us? Then I thought, well, it's a small town and a small voting district so maybe she really doesn't see all that many people.
Eventually I realized, though, that these are probably the only -- or some of the very few -- kids that she sees at the polling place. (I'm pretty sure she does also see
gosling and ceo's Benjamin as well though.) Probably they get so many boring ol' grownups shuffling through there ;) that the occasional kid is a breath of fresh air, so to speak.Voting is such an interesting combination of a duty, a right, and a privilege. How does one convey the complexity thereof to a child? Well, you start by simply exposing them to the process. The rest can flow from there.
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hee
Date: 2007-05-07 09:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-08 01:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-08 01:23 am (UTC)I often vote sometime in the middle of the day, so I don't know how the numbers compare to after the after-work shift votes, but as far as I can tell the count of votes cast in the non-major elections is usually just a few hundred by the time we get there. So it may not be just that you're the only one taking your kids, but also that you're one of a smaller subset of people who vote regularly, and not just when there's a presidential/congressional election.