voting rights

On the way to school this morning, Squiss had a series of questions about presidents.  ("Who was the first president of our country?" etc.)  Then, she reverted to something that had last come up months ago, I think: children's right to vote and the lack thereof.  By the time we got to school she was almost in tears over the injustice of it.  The thought of writing letters -- to the president, to our representatives -- seems to have gotten her over the hump, but I was struck by it, nonetheless.

In tears, because she doesn't have the right to vote.  At not-quite-five.

Comments

[dr]

We're having pretty heated conversations about the presidential race over dinner these days, but I think that Squiss's focus on voting has two particular origins. First, I was somehow dropped from the rolls for our primary, so I had to cast a provisional ballot which was probably never counted (and I was outraged -- although I do think that it was a genuine mistake rather than anything more sinister). Second, they talked a LOT about MLK Jr. during February at Squiss's school, and one of the things she was really interested in was fairness, and voting, and ... here we are.

[(un)relaxeddad]

Politics hasn't come up yet in our household (apart from intense discussions as to the levels of goodness of people with guns - that gets very complicated). Do they discuss elections at her school or has it come up in conversations at home? (Maybe we don't talk about politics in front of him enough. Now I'm getting worried he won't register. At just over four.)