I like SageRat’s answer. Even before my son was that age he was very interested in current events and politics. He watched the news with me from the time he was in Kindergarten (that was around the time of Monica Lewinsky. Boy was that a fun conversation).
He had paid attention to the 2000 elections and wanted to stay up to watch the results. He asked me what was the difference was between the parties. I basically gave a variation of SageRat’s response. I also told him that within the parties there are conservatives and liberals. Conservatives tend to prefer traditional roles for the military and families and liberals tend to be open minded about familial roles and prefer a reduced military role in world events. Obviously this is an oversimplification.
He then asked which party I belonged to. I told him that I was a fiscal conservative and believed in a strong military, that the federal government should back off on most roles and that the laws should be determined by the states. I also said that I believed in individual freedoms so the federal government should not be telling people who they can and cannot marry. I said that I was never able to find a candidate that met every criteria I was looking for so I had to choose whoever I felt best matched what I wanted.
I’ve made a point of not trying to influence his political views. I’ve talked with him about the “good” and “bad” points of each party and issue. I attempt to give him historical backgrounds on events or laws. I’ve provided him with magazines, books and newspapers and we watch news programs together. I even had him read the Constitution and explained the language for him when necessary.
He was in 4th grade when 9/11 happened. We talked about Islam, fundamentalism, Israel and US involvement in the Middle East.
Since then he has become more conservative in his thinking. He wants a strong military and secure borders. Because my wife and I have had many second trimester miscarriages, he is against abortion. He sees kids in his school that don’t speak English and whose parents came here illegally and is outraged. When his friend’s dad was passed over for a promotion because he was a white male and the promotion went to an African-American with less seniority and who scored lower on the exam, he was disgusted.
Yet, he also believes in helping people in need and helps me sometimes at the “soup kitchen” near here. He is friends with the daughter of a lesbian couple and loves his aunt and her “wife” and wants them to get married. He passed a petition in his school to improve their recycling program.
I’m trying my damndest to let him make up his own mind and even if he joins the Pat Buchanan brigade or Al Gore’s legion, I’ll still love him.
When I was about the fourth grade age, I asked my mother what the differences between the parties were. My mom told me that republicans were people who were only concerned about themselves. All they cared about was money. They would lie, steal, and cheat to get money, often at the expense of the good honest working Democrats. Democrats cared about people. They wanted to make life better for eveyone. They put others wishes ahead of their own. They were the good guys, the republicans the bad guys.
So with this information, whenever I discovered a friend’s parent was a republican, I immediately thought they were one of the bad guys. I felt sorry for my friend being raised by such an awful person. I was quite conflicted when I discovered a favorite “aunt” or “uncle” was a republican. How could I have not realized how terrible they were? They had seemed so nice. Guess republicans were also sneaky and very good at hiding who they really were.
I finally had to ask my dad why he was spending so much time with the bad guy republicans. Didn’t he realize they were just faking being nice; they actually were just trying to get money for themselves? Didn’t he realize they didn’t care about people?
Then he dropped a real bomb, he told me he was much more a republican than a democrat. He didn’t really believe in using those labels though. He said the political parties change what they stand for constantly, so he felt it was much more important to develop a core belief structure, and then see what group at the time was representing more of those core beliefs. Both sides had good people, both sides had bad people. You picked a side based on your own life experience, and as your life experiences change, your party might change as well. But there was nothing inherently wrong with either group.
I asked him why his answer was so different from my mother’s, why didn’t he just explain things to her so she would stop saying bad things about anyone who was a republican. He said she came to her own conclusions based on own her life experience. When she was very little, she had a very nice life. The Great Depression hit, and life was not so nice. They had no money for food, clothes, medicine. Times were hard, and her father blamed the republicans for that. So she grew up blaming the republicans. Her core belief is centered around having a government that makes sure no families ever have to go through what her family had gone through. She had her reasons for seeing things as she did. But that didn’t make them right, or wrong, or the only way to see things. It was just what was right for her.
His own life experience was different. His family was also hit hard by the depression when he was young. So at a very young age, he left home, thinking the best way he could help his family was to become self sufficient so there would be one less mouth to feed. It was not easy being a pre-teen living on his own, but he worked hard, often having to work for free first to show he would be good worker. He found by working harder than anyone else, he could always find work and support himself. That shaped his core belief that the most important thing you could do was take care of yourself, never be a burden. So he favored the party that made it easiest for folks to take care of themselves. Which to him was the republicans because they favored government not making rules and regulations that can get in the way of some being able to take of themselves.
The next part of his core belief was that once you could take care of yourself, you should then help others who are not at the point they can take care of themselves. Like the men he sometimes asked for work. Some of them he knew didn’t really need one more worker, even a good worker, but they “made up” jobs for him to do so he could eat. He realized this was done as charity which he normally wouldn’t have taken. He very much wanted to remain out of anyone’s debt. But they didn’t present it as charity; they represented it as work he would be compensated for, even if the compensation was just a meal or two. So he made sure he worked even harder for them to show his appreciation for them giving him the chance to eat, and maintain his self-respect as one who was able to take of himself and not be a burden to others.
And contrary to what many on this board think, he felt that that core belief, of when you are in a position to help others, you should, also fit in with the republican party. Getting a hand out from the government when you are in need may feed you for the day, but in the long run, with no self-respect, and feeling like you now owe the government you weren’t any better off down the road. My dad said he believed in that old saying of “Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for the rest of his life.”
Then he asked me if I knew what all those meetings he went to in the evenings were about. ( He was a Mason, in the Optimist Club, president of the local United Way, and a few others) He explained that in his career, he learned to set up programs and bring people together to accomplish big goals. So he brought those same skills to the volunteer groups he worked with, and was very proud of the way our community was able to work together to make life better for those who were not able take care of themselves. None of these were government programs, they were individuals who joined together to help others, and it worked.
My mom saw poor people and thought the government should help those people, so she would vote for democrats who would do that. My dad saw poor people and thought he should do something about that, so he voted for republicans who would help to support his being able to do that.
I am so thankful my dad could explain things to me in a way that showed me what he believed, but made it clear I was expected to come to my own beliefs. He never said bad things against democrats. He didn’t believe the way someone voted, which was usually influenced by their unique life experiences, was anything you should judge a person on. Someone can feel very strongly about certain issues, and you can feel the opposite way, and still have respect for that person. When you disrespect someone for their political views, you disrespect their experiences bringing them to those views.
I have followed my father’s example in many ways. I rarely talk politics with my friends because most of them are very liberal and I know I basically disagree with many of their views. I see no reason to argue with them or try to change them. There are many issues I do agree with them on, and when possible I will work with them on those things. And I am so glad I don’t have my mother’s hatred and distrust of the other side. I have met many people like her though, and feel those people severely limited themselves and their ability to accomplish their goals by being that way.
So I would hope a teacher, when asked about political parties could present both sides fairly, show both sides are made up of good and bad people, effective and ineffective people. You don’t become a better person by being part of a certain party. You are not a worse person for having certain core beliefs which shape your political views. And I would sincerely hope a parent would not have a problem with kids being taught that in school.
Grits, that was incredibly well written and inspirational. 
I applaud you and your father. More people need to see that the labels don’t help, they only hinder and that putting blinders on limits your ability to make proper decisions. There are too many people on this board who say Republican/conservative=Nazi or Democrat/liberal = Communist. We are all influenced by our environment and upbringing. I would love to hear the reasons why some board members have their political views and what shaped them into being so extreme in their hatred and venom for the opposition. But that would have to be another thread.
I agree, Grits…that was a great, great, post. I especially loved this paragraph:
It’s a perfect example of how this can be taught to school children without being partisan. As SageRat did, you can break it down by issues, and this one might be: Helping the Poor, and then giving each parties’ philosophy about how to do that. This is much, much different from characterizing the Democrats as WANTING to help the poor, and the Republicans as NOT WANTING to help the poor.
To turn it around to something that a Republican might say to try to make Democrats look bad, you could use national defense…that Republicans think having a strong military is the best way to protect the country, and the Democrats think diplomatic means are the best way to defend the country. Which is, of course, much much different from characterizing the Republicans as WANTING national security and the Democrats as NOT WANTING national security. (Just trying to keep my contributions to this thread on a philosophical and non-partisan level! )
If you’re not a Democrat at age twenty, then you have no heart.
If you’re not a Republican at age forty, then you have no money.
or…
A Republican is a Democrat who’s been mugged. A Democrat is a Republican who’s lost their job.
Which is why neither party likes drug dealers.
Woohoo!
Thank you all. I’m just good at breaking things apart, I guess.