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I posted this a few weeks ago when I was keeping her for a week.
I'm babysitting my 8 year old niece for the week. Her school will hold a straw poll the first week of classes (next week!) and continue studying the election through November. We were talking about it tonight.
(I should mention that her father (my brother) is a staunch Republican (because he's rich, not on any social issue or religious grounds that I can tell) and her mother is a devout Catholic who votes GOP on the abortion-and-gays issues but is quite reasonable on most other issues (single payer health care, etc. And to her credit, she puts her money where her mouth is. They're foster parents and are talking about adopting, and they've given more than one unwed mother money for prenatal care and such).
Needless to say, I am very cautious about trying to enlighten her. I go too far, and I may never get another chance. Hence the references to "President Bush" instead of his true title, Unelected Emperor Bunnypants.)
Here's a brief snippet from our conversation:
Niece (N): Who're you voting for, Aunt Dawn?
Me: Senator Kerry.
N: Why? (Looking puzzled.)
Me: I think President Bush has done a bad job. If someone does a bad job and really hurts people, they should get fired, right? Isn't that how your dad runs his business?
N: Yes.
Me: Well, if you try to run the country like a business, that's how you decide. If President Bush did a good job, we should vote to let him stay. But he did a bad job, so I'm voting to fire him and hire a new guy.
N: Daddy said that Kerry wants homosexual marriage. That's a sin.
Me: Baby, I don't know what's a sin and what isn't. That's up to your priest and the Pope and your mom, to a certain extent. But you know how your family doesn't eat meat on Fridays, but a lot of other Catholic families do?
N: Yes.
Me: Well, do you think it should be a law that NO Catholic family is ALLOWED to eat meat on Friday?
N: No! That's stupid.
Me: Well, I feel that way about gay marriage. It might be a sin, in some people's eyes, but there shouldn't be a law about it to say no one is allowed to do it. If you think it would be a sin for you to marry a girl, then you shouldn't marry a girl. But your belief about what's wrong shouldn't make the laws for everyone else. Does that make sense?
N: Eyes lit up -- light bulb went on -- no way to explain it other than that -- she GOT IT.
Slowly but surely, my DU friends. Slowly but surely, we will reach the children. And, not to be cliched, but they are the future. We will get this country back.
UPDATE:
Got an e-mail from her tonight. Kerry won the class straw poll (3rd grade in a very conservative parochial school) by the count of 14 to 5. :D :D :D :D :D
My brother informed me, laughing, yesterday that my sister in law is very pissed off at me. Not about the vote -- about something else altogether. See, I occasionally use the F word. I did not allow her to use it, though (she tried once) and when she asked me why I could say it and she couldn't, I said, "Baby, are you allowed to drive a car? No. That is something that is not okay for kids but is okay for grownups. So is saying Fuck. When you're old enough to drive, you're old enough to say fuck."
She got it. No big deal.
Evidently, for the last week or so, my sister-in-law has been interrogating her about the things we said and did. The F word story came out. My sister-in-law tried very hard to c onvince her that it's a terrible sin. She said, "Why? Mommy, it's just a word. Aunt Dawn is cool. I love her."
Aaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwww.
My brother found the whole thing funny and ended the conversation by saying that he loves me (which is something he has said only about ten times in our whole lives.) :)
I am finding him to be more and more open-minded, the older he gets. I may try working on him about not voting for Bunnypants. Even if I just get him to stay home, it's a victory. :D
Thanks for listening, anyone who got this far.....
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