Should Parents Teach Their Children About Politics?

It's 8:19 pm and I'm waiting for the vp debate to begin. My 9 1/2 year old starts telling me that her teachers were making a collage of the candidates. They pointed to the picture of the woman and asked the students "Does anyone know who this is?" My daughter raised her hand and answered, "Sarah Palin". Now, my daughter wants to be a veterinarian. She has an unusual ability to memorize statistics given on Animal Planet shows. She has a real problem with Sarah Palin's stance on the environment, especially when it comes to THE POLAR BEARS. I've taught her to respect others opinions, especially since her grandmother is a die hard Palin fanatic.

As soon as The Diva came home, she told me she was given a quiz in class. The teacher gives a quiz every week with similar questions about current events. She was sitting surrounded by 5 different girls. After the quiz, the teacher went over the answers. One question was, "What are the names of the candidates?" Of course, my daughter knows their names, their platforms and can answer why she supports one over the other. She let the girls around her answer. One girl said, "One of them is a black guy...but I don't know his name." The other girl said, "Yeah, and he's a muslim." The other girl answered, "Ummm, aren't the two candidates the black guy with the funny name and Hillary Clinton?" My daughter and the teacher were horrified. My daughter raised her hand and answered the question. She gave the correct information about his religion too. She couldn't believe that teens were so disconnected from such an important event that will effect their lives and the world.

Apparently many parents are not engaging their children in very important matters. Why would a parent not share the democratic process with their kids? The Little One (the autistic 7 yr old) can point out Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain. We were at Target and he saw the book "The Audacity of Hope" and he exclaimed, "Look Mommy, Barack Obama."

Ok, I'm a little excessive with the news. When I say to The Little One, "Mommy, is going to watch TV now." He takes the remote control and changes the channel to CNN. Yes, he recognizes CNN, MSNBC and FoxNews.

Seriously, shouldn't parents teach their kids about the democratic process? I'd rather do it, then let some teacher share their beliefs and have my kids accept them. I'm curious about how other parents see this issue?

This post was written on Oct. 2, 2008 at 8:19pm. It was published the next day...