By Dawn McMullan, KERA 90.1 Commentator
Dallas, TX –
My husband and I always take our kids with us to vote so they're quite familiar with and intrigued by the process. The day before last week's election, as we walked by our sign against Proposition 2, my 8-year-old asked if he was old enough to vote. I told him he had to wait until he was 18. Never one to accept rules easily, he came up with a plan. We could sneak in, I could get him the ballot and black pen under my name, then he could fill in the appropriate bubble. I explained that while that might work, it was illegal and would mean I couldn't vote. So really, we wouldn't gain anything.
A friend's 6-year-old daughter had a similar idea, asking her mom if she could just sneak one in. She has diabetes. I'd love to hear her thoughts on our nation's health-care and insurance policies.
Honestly, I think these kids are onto something.
Proposition 2 would never have passed if we relied on the wisdom of, say, the 4- to 11-year-old voter. Before 4, of course, you'd get a lot of uneducated and self-centered toddler voting not unlike what we're dealing with these days. After age 11, kids are getting awfully close to those teenaged years. While many would probably still hold to the truths of innocence and childhood, no one with that many hormones should be voting. The same could probably be said about women in menopause.
But the wisdom of that 4- to 11-year-old age group is vast. My 5-year-old understands equal rights. I've kicked the soccer ball for five minutes, now it's your turn. I'd like to eat half of this candy bar. And if I'm going to eat it in front of you, you deserve half, too. Fair trade is a piece of cake for him especially if you offer him a piece of cake. If I ask him to sweep the back porch, promising him said cake when he's done, he's more than happy to take broom to wood for five minutes. Now if I offered him the same piece of cake for 10 hours in a sweatshop, I'm sure he wouldn't think that was such a fair trade.
My 8-year-old understands the homeless issue. The man sleeping on that skinny cement shelf under the I-30 overpass isn't safe. He needs money, food, a blanket, maybe even a mattress. He also gets foreign aid. We've bought animals for people in third-world countries through the Heifer Project. We also sponsor a child in India through the Christian Children's Fund. My son decided he wanted to buy chickens for our Christian Children's Fund child, which I told him probably wasn't possible because we'd be dealing with two different agencies. He asked me to call. I did. And we can, indeed, do it. That kind of initiative and cooperation might take years at the U.N.
Regarding foreign relations, I think 6-year-old Sydney had the answer when she said: Soccer would be a much better game if when people knocked you down they said they're sorry and they helped you get back up.
When asked about the Middle East, 8-year-old Austin Rae had this solution: "Let them all fight it out until they're done, and then let Texas take over." Hey, why not? Nothing else has worked.
What I love is there would be no partisanship here. Deciding between business and smog, the earth and profit easy. Trees will win over the dollars they create any time with a kid.
Abortion. I think they'd just get rid of it. You really can't justify the death of a baby to a kid, regardless the baby's age or size.
War would be a tougher call, I think, should it come up for a vote. But if our kids decided to go to war, I feel confident they'd dress up like Darth Vader and use plastic light sabers instead of bombs and automatic weapons. And they'd make sure everyone was home for dinner.
Dawn McMullan is a writer from Dallas.
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