Can your kids, or grandkids, influence your vote?
I'm going to concede that I've only been at this parenting thing for a year, and my stepdaughters (aged 13 and 15) are more interested in Chris Brown v. The Jonas Brothers than they are in Barack Obama v. John McCain.
So I have to wonder whether anyone could really be persuaded by their offspring to vote for or against a particular candidate.
I mean, I think of all that goes into parenting, particularly the sustained, 18-plus-year effort to instill your values in your children, only to have them travel halfway across the state, country or world to tell you that they have decided how you should vote.
Like I don't hear enough from TV commercials and Saturday Night Live; now I have to worry that my kids are going to grow up to tell me to vote Democrat. Or Republican. Or Libertarian. Or whatever.
I just wonder whether some McCain-supporting grandparents are just aching for their children's children to "schlep" on over to tell them to vote for Obama.
Let's remove the candidate names from this: You support candidate A. You grandchild pays you a visit to tell you he knows better; you should vote for candidate B.
How likely are you to listen?
Comments
I'm glad you brought that up. These kids are being shamelessly used by adults to further their agendas. I would politely listen, to set a good example, then attempt to explain my opinion. I doubt it would affect my vote, but it would be a good life lesson for the kids.
Posted by: Jeff | October 10, 2008 2:02 PM
Not much. Your kids eventually surpass you in many ways. My son could make me look like Kimbo Slice the other night and my daughter recently ran me into the ground in a 10k. But telling me how to vote? I can't imagine telling my kids how to vote and I don't think they would ever tell me.
It's called mutual respect.
Posted by: dave2 | October 11, 2008 1:19 AM
I don't think this is a matter of respect. In the particular case of the Great Shlep, the reason it started was that seniors were shown to have a lot of misconceptions about Obama (he's Muslim, he's a terrorist, he doesn't support Israel). So it was a case of clearing up those misconceptions and explaining why the kids thought that he was a good candidate.
That doesn't mean that they were trying to tell their grandparents not to vote their conscience, but just to make sure that they had the correct information to make an informed decision. I would hope that anyone would want to have all the information available to make a good choice no matter who it came from.
Posted by: JaniceG | October 15, 2008 6:31 PM
I don't think this is a matter of respect. In the particular case of the Great Shlep, the reason it started was that seniors were shown to have a lot of misconceptions about Obama (he's Muslim, he's a terrorist, he doesn't support Israel). So it was a case of clearing up those misconceptions and explaining why the kids thought that he was a good candidate.
That doesn't mean that they were trying to tell their grandparents not to vote their conscience, but just to make sure that they had the correct information to make an informed decision. I would hope that anyone would want to have all the information available to make a good choice no matter who it came from.
Posted by: JaniceG | October 15, 2008 6:39 PM