The Election and 4 Year Olds

I guess Joshua has been hearing a lot about the election lately between listening to talk radio and listening to me and Scott. One day, he asked what "voting" was. I explained it to him in the best way I could for a 4 year old...The President is like the boss of all the states. He makes all the rules. There are 2 men who think they would be the best at being President, Barack Obama and John McCain. All the grown-ups get to vote on who they think would be the best President and the man with the most votes wins. Joshua understands a little bit about President because we saw the motorcade for the President of Mexico when we were in Cancun...so every time there are a lot of police cars, Joshua thinks the President is in town.

Anyway, I pick Joshua up from school one day and he tells me who Donovan, Reid and Ben are going to vote for. Oh, and who he is going to vote for too...luckily, he is voting for the same candidate as Scott and I are voting for. He told me that Reid is voting for so-and-so because "he does better business," Donovan was voting for such-and-such because he doesn't think so-and-so "does better business." Ben was also voting for so-and-so but didn't know what "doing better business" meant. Scott and I both had visions of Joshua's preschool class singing like the North Korean children singing the praises of Pyongyang. I asked Joshua if his class was learning about the election and the President...pretty heavy stuff for 4 year olds but it is what the world is currently talking about...he did say no, just the boys. I also asked him who other kids in his class were voting for and he didn't know. I asked his teacher about it today and she said the kids talk about it during snack and they haven't been teaching it during class.

I was looking at Yahoo or MSN or some other site the other night and there was a campaign add at the top of the screen. Joshua points to it and says "Hey! That's Barack Obama!" I just pulled up John McCain's website (who evidently doesn't run ads on Yahoo or MSN) and asked Joshua if he knew who it was...he said "Yes. That's John McCain. Didn't you know who it is?" I guess Joshua pays closer attention to the news when we have it on than I thought he did.

Whether you are for "Change We Can Believe In" or "Country First: Reform * Prosperity * Peace", please vote. It's important to us, even 4 year olds.