I was driving when I got that text. My car actually reads the text to me (thanks Suburu) so I can’t respond, but I had an idea of what my grandson was asking and I knew it was important. I pulled over.
My oldest three grandchildren are boys, the young adult sons of my oldest son. They are 18, 19 and 21 years old, and although they have all the privileges of being white and male, they have certainly had some real challenges, and don’t live the middle-class dream of college and summer jobs; like many, that has just not been their path.
This is the first election for two of them. The oldest was only 19 in 2016, and like a few other young people we knew, he was quite taken in by the FB false equivalency between Hillary and Trump once Bernie was “out” — we saw it on his feed. In truth, he really didn’t care that much anyway. I don’t think he even voted.
His other grandparents (who are very close to all the boys, and see them more often than we do) are staunch Republican evangelical Trump supporters. They’re kinda the blue-collar type, no one in their family has had much education, lots of cops and preachers. But really, when it comes to those boys, and my son and his wife, they are the salt of the earth. We don’t agree on anything, but we have agreed that we love our children and grandchildren.
My husband and I are pretty involved and passionate about our politics, but only as much as they align with our love and compassion for humanity. The city where we raised our kids (now adults and most parents themselves) was conservative, but as the years passed, it became a very red, evangelical city. Most of of our kids ended up marrying into more conservative families than they had been raised in, simply because there were so few on the other side of us. Democrats couldn’t broadcast their politics without the risk of losing friends and business. (Believe me, I know.)
We have never been that nosy about our kids and how they vote. We figure we did our best to raise them right, and we sure know that we taught them how to think for themselves. We’re super proud of how they’ve turned out, amazed at where they’ve gone, and how they’ve gotten there — not where we’d ever have told any of them to go. And that’s exactly how it is when it comes to politics. They’ve all come home to roost. And brought their spouses with them.
We’ve lived in a different city now, not too far away, for several years, so we don’t see our grandchildren as often as we used to. I’ve started having breakfast with the three older boys once a month. I know their other grandpa used to just talk smack about Obama all the time, even in front of me sometimes. I think it’s hard for them. They hear it all the time. So when I asked three months ago, “Are you guys registered to vote?” I sort of undersood why two of them shrugged and one said, “I don’t know, but no way am I voting.” I think he’s been caught between two worlds.
The next month I asked again, and told them their grandpa (my husband) wanted to know. Not who they were voting for, just if they were registered to vote. (He did want to know.) They adore him. The oldest one said he definitely was registered. He told his brothers how easy it was. One of them said, “I don’t even know who is running,” to which the oldest replied, “It’s easy, just mark everything with a D.” They all laughed. The oldest has good, smart friends. They respect him.
I sighed with relief.
But it just wasn’t that easy for those younger two. They did register, (after encouraging/inquiring texts from Grandpa) and they said they would vote but they didn’t get around to voting early. He kept bugging. The oldest one voted! But the younger boys have had a rough year, for different reasons. I don’t think they feel very empowered right now, and I know they are hearing different things from different people. (We have never said a word, but they know we love Obama and can’t stand Trump.)
Five days ago, one of them went silent and didn’t respond to a group text my husband sent about them voting. I was worried and Sunday I texted him just to ask if he was okay. He said he was. I asked if we had offended him and said that we loved him so much. He replied that we had not offended him in any way and that he loved us, too. That was it.
Today I was driving home when I got a text from him.
“What’s 112?”
“On the ballot?”
He was voting.
Three for three.