I don’t think my daughter would ever have had to ask, she knew. We always chatted about various issues that sometimes touched on politics, and she heard me discussing them with friends too. And, well, we went on anti-war marches, I was involved with CND, we went to many events where the Red Flag was sung… Although nothing we ever went to was actually connected to a specific political party, just causes that tend to attract more left-wingers, I don’t think there could ever have been any doubt in her mind as to which way I’d vote.
We have talked about politics and religion since she was quite little, at her instigation. With religion I’ve basically been “some people believe this, some people believe that, I don’t believe in anything; you are free to make your own choices.” She went to a CofE (Church of England) primary school and we are thoroughly cultural Christians, so I’m pretty sure she knew I was telling the truth when I said she could make her own choices.
Politics has always been more about individual issues, for us, rather than party politics. I am pretty definite on my opinions on some things, and less definite on others. She now wavers between supporting Labour and supporting the Green Party, and has actually asked my advice about which one to choose, due to things like tactical voting more than policies.
I’m not actually 100% certain whether she voted Green or Labour at the last election because she got confused by the forms. In that election, in our borough, there were a really huge number of forms with confusing options, and she’s autistic and is used to me explaining what things on forms mean, but obvs I wasn’t allowed to do that when she was actually voting.
I went through it first but all that helped with was “don’t choose these ones” (Tories and a couple of other right-wingers - she didn’t want to choose them) so she’s not entirely sure what she actually voted. If she had asked me, instead, to help her choose anything but Labour or anyone left wing, I would have helped her with that too, letting her know that it was against my principles to vote for those parties - she’d know I was lying if I said otherwise - but I’d still help her vote for her choice.