"Mommy, someone said that if you are born in Virginia you have to vote for Trump."
Well, there's a way to start a car ride. I picked my son up from aftercare and here's what he threw at me. The interesting thing is that my husband and I haven't been talking about the election with our son. That was not necessarily a conscious decision, it just so happened that he's asleep by the time my husband gets home at night and when the debates conclude. With that said, apparently my son is paying more attention than I thought (proud mommy). So back to our conversation....
"Well, sweetie. That is not true. Anyone who is an American citizen and who is 18 can vote for whomever they want, no matter where they were born. So have you all been talking about the election in school?"
"Yeah, some. I want Hilary Clinton to win."
"Why is that?"
"Well, Trump has said some not nice things. He said that women are not good for anything but housework."
(working mommy pause) "Well, I could see how that would stick out to you as you have a mother who works, but also because you know there are no household jobs that are mommy or daddy jobs. To be honest, your father does more of the cleaning (and is better at it). We both cook and we both take you to your various activities or events."
This conversation continued like this for a while as my son shared his curiosities about the election, when he can run for office, how many elections he's been around for, etc. It was really interesting to listen to him on this matter considering this was the first conversation we were having on the subject. It was also interesting his perspective of how the election was playing out along racial lines in his school. As a "multicolored" (his words, not mine) child and one of 5 or 6 students of color out of 30 in his class, he shared his impression that all his white classmates were voting for Trump. Now to be fair, I don't think he asked every single one of the 24-25 other students in his class who they were voting for. Since I am not one for generalizing and attributing the opinion of a few to a while group, I thought it was important for him to understand that just like people from Virginia can vote for whoever they want, the same is true for other groups. I explained to him that not all whites are voting for Trump, just like not all women are voting for Clinton and that people will decide who they want to vote for based on whose ideas, platforms, plans, and values are aligned with their own. While that may have been slightly over his head, I think what I see in the future (for local elections or for Presidential election 2020) is us spending time together looking at where candidates land on various issues and having my son make his own decision of who his candidate would be.
While I wasn't expecting an election focused car ride home (even though this is not the first time he's thrown me a deep conversation curve ball), I was definitely impressed by my son's interest in the subject, his questions, and even his consideration that perhaps he'll run for some office at some point in his life (student council, local government, or perhaps, even the Oval Office). The other lesson here is that even if you are not talking to your child about what's going on, someone is so never underestimate what they are aware of and influenced by.
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