I appreciated the sentiment behind GeekDad's column this weekend, urging everyone to take their kids to the polls if they're old enough. But I've got to ask, what's old enough?
My daughter was just shy of the five-month mark the first time she entered a voting booth. If I'm really pushing it, I could say it was the second time. I was nine months pregnant when I cast my ballot on the local race for board of education candidates.
Growing up, my brother and I accompanied one parent or the other, and sometimes both, to votes on the school district budget, the presidency, the town council, the library budget, you name it. If it was nearing nine o'clock when my dad finally got home from his busy job as owner of his own contracting business, he'd ask one of us to jump in the car and race over to the school to throw his two cents in on the people vying to decide the direction of the school district. If Dad was busy, Mom never bothered to call a sitter so she could go pick the next town supervisor. She took us with her.
When I wasn't able to vote in my first presidential election after turning eighteen because of a move to Virginia too close to election day, I wasn't just a little miffed. I was depressed for days. It had been so ingrained in me that this was part of my duty, part of my right, that I was ready to storm the statehouse to get the rules changed for people like me, the people without a polling place. I put that credit firmly on the shoulders of my parents, who taught me how to pull the plush curtains closed and let me help pull down each individual lever. This was my birthright. It's what I'd been doing for 18 years, only now I should have been doing it for real.
They might have been quiet about their choices, but they were never shy about their expectations. If there's a vote going on and you're eligible, you walk in, sign your name in the record book, and you walk with your head up to the voting booth.
Want your kids to do that one day? Show them how . . . now.
Image: Kids Voting USA
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