My Daughter's a Democrat!
Wed Dec 13, 2006 at 11:00:05 PM PDT
No big deal, no surprise, nothing particularly significant happened. It's just that, well, okay, it feels pretty damned good, and I'm pleased to have a forum of virtual friends to brag to.
My daughter, the apple of my eye, doesn't turn 18 until April, when she'll become eligible to vote for the first time. But tomorrow she's taking her driver's license test, a nervous moment to be sure. She just left the Registry of Motor Vehicles license application out for me to sign before she goes to the test. Looking through it, I recalled that MA "moter voter" law allows applicants to register to vote when they apply for a driver's license (a very good idea).
And sure enough, there under "party affiliation", she checked "Democrat". Add another one to the ranks, Howard.
As I say, this is no big deal, as I've talked politics all the time with my daughter, and it was obvious that she's no Bush fan, and essentially aligned with my outlook. I'd have been dumbfounded if she chose "Republican", although "Independent" would have been far more plausible.
But the moment gives me a chance to reflect with considerable pride on the years of her upbringing and our relationship, and to be aware that these things don't always turn out so favorably for many families. Think about how many Kossacks have revealed their frustration with their own right-wing leaning parents and relatives. My parents were themselves centrist "Rockefeller" Republicans, and one of my two brothers has about the same political outlook. (My older brother, on the other hand, is so far left he makes me look fascist.)
We all know that it's not as simple as "teaching your children the right values" or leading by example. Kids are influenced by a host of events and perceptions that are beyond their parents' control. There were many, many younger people who reacted to the events of 9/11, the first major public affairs exposure of their lifetimes, by becoming stridently militaristic and knee-jerk pro-Bush, just because it seemed like the "patriotic" thing to do. By contrast, Watergate was probably the first significant political event of my young lifetime, and along with the Vietnam War, it surely helped shape my outlook.
Indeed, I also have an 18-year-old stepson, who's been with me since he was 5, and we haven't always seen eye-to-eye. He was stridently pro-Bush and pro-War for the longest time, but he too seems to be coming around. He even voted for Deval Patrick last month.
But I've always been especially close to my daughter. Her mother became irreversibly ill when she was just a baby, so I raised her by myself from age 3. My wife, her stepmom, has had a lot of influence at a personal level, but intellectually it's always been me and her. Whenever the Big Questions have come up -- what happened on 9/11 and why, who am I supporting for President and why, what do I think about religion, etc. -- I've never held back or minced words, I've tried to explain what I believe in a clear and sincere way (okay, I might have shaded the truth on the whole Santa bit for awhile). And I've always tried to explain respectfully that there are other people with other points of view, and to ask what she thought.
I recall one long car ride together, when she couldn't have been more than 7 or 8 years old, when we somehow started talking about politics. I tried to frame certain issues for her, and ask how she would deal with them if she were in charge. This was during the Clinton era, and the basic question I tried to explain involved the tradeoffs between taxes and spending, and what Government should do with the money it receives: spend it to help older people like her grandmother, spend it to protect the country militarily, use it to help the poor, reduce the deficit, give it back to the taxpayers, etc. I was impressed with her ability to grasp the underlying philosophical and practical constraints, and formulate intelligent ideas.
Still, it's not as if she's grown into a political animal like some of the young bucks and does on this site. She certainly pays attention to a certain degree, as she's become addicted to The Daily Show and Colbert Report, which are probably her only significant source of political news most of the time. (Sure, they undoubtedly had as much to do with her Democratic affiliation as my upbringing, but hey, I'm the one who turned her onto those, and comedy in general, in the first place.) But her day-in, day-out life largely ignores current events and politics that are outside of her sphere of interests. I've showed her DailyKos and she's read a handful of posts, but her on-line experience tends toward LiveJournal, Fan Fiction, and Anime web sites.
Truth be told, there's part of me that doesn't really want my daughter to become the political junkie that I am. There's so much heartache and anguish down this path, so much frustration and depression at the stupidity of so many of our country's "leaders", so much seeming hopelessness, so often.
But then there are the rays of hope and optimism. The Democrats win back the Congress against all odds. The American public takes off its post-9/11 blinders and starts to see the Bush administration and the Iraq debacle for what they really are. A 17-year-old political neophyte makes her first personal political decision, and signs up to be a Democrat.
Our country's future just got a tiny bit brighter. And I've got a smile on my face (and a little tear in my eye).
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