"Premature Politics"

Back when I used to teach undergraduates, I was floored by how many had never been exposed to any discussion of politics before. Several said they didn’t even know their parents’ political party registration. Clearly lots of people don’t talk politics with their kids.

So the article in the current (Jan/Feb 2008) issue of Mothering magazine on whether to introduce children to politics felt familiar. Despite the wheeny liberal “on the one hand, on the other hand” framing, it was clear from the first ‘graph where the author came down (duh—the article is called “Premature Politics”). Bolstered by opinions from such experts as a “mother of five and children’s program expert in California’s state legislature” and a Waldorf teacher-trainer, she says not to talk politics with your children until they’re like 30 (okay, she said wait until adolescence)—it might damage them. They might find out bad things happen in the world! They might get discouraged and overwhelmed.

My experience teaching undergraduates with whom nobody had ever discussed politics before showed the reverse was true. They knew the world largely sucked, but they figured that was just the way it was and the way it always would be. “One person can’t make a difference,” they always said. When I heard that, I always wanted to beam Odetta down to the classroom and have her sing, “One man’s hand can’t break the color bar. Two man’s hands can’t break the color bar. But if two and two and fifty make a million, we’ll see that day come ‘round.” But Odetta didn’t show, and since my singing is, ahem, nothing like Odetta’s, I didn’t try singing myself.

Clearly, nobody had ever told them the million inspiring stories out there about people together creating tremendous change. They had no concept of anything more than individual action. That is, they had no concept of politics. That’s disempowering and discouraging, and it was hard to reverse so late in the day. Waiting until adolescence to suddenly introduce politics is like never mentioning right and wrong until then—indeed, politics is right and wrong in a larger context. The Mothering author’s attitude that morality comes first, politics much later is like that infuriating label given to right-wing religious voters, “values voters”—as if the rest of us lack values.

The author says she “tried to show my kids the big picture, insisting that things are improving overall.” That sounds Pollyanna-ish to me. I don’t know if things are improving overall—ask the folks in Iraq. What I do believe is that some very important things have gotten better, sometimes quite suddenly (prime example: the feminist movement), because people created movements to make them better. And I plan to raise my children to be inspired by these stories and feel a sense of responsibility to do their part. As the rabbis say, it is not your responsibility to finish the building, but you must do your part in continuing to build it.