Today is election day....for the past while we haven't been able to go anywhere or do anything without hearing about something dealing with the elections. This is normal for a Presidential election year. However, what I didn't expect was for my 11-year-old to not only care about who won, but to actually know where Obama and McCain stood on the various issues. In his Social Studies class they did an exercise where they looked at a list of issues and the stance of each candidate. One catch....there were no candidate names associated with the stances. The teacher taught them to vote by looking at where the candidates stand on the issues rather than by the party or other superficial factors. Landin picked up on the lesson. Not only did he care which way Billy and I voted, but now he's staying up a bit later than normal listening to his radio as the results come in.
I have to say that I'm very impressed. When I was 11 I only knew there was an election going on because my parents were voting officials and were at my school all day. I'm also impressed because at 11 he understands how to vote better than many adults do. So many get caught up in the superficial...party, age, race, religion, appearance, etc and don't pay attention to the fact that the candidate they are discarding for something superficial is the one that actually was in line with their own beliefs. I hope that more people can learn this lesson. It is sorely needed.
I've told many that Landin is so smooth that I believe he may grow up to be a used car salesman. After this election he may go for a different line of work that uses the same skills....politician. Heaven help us if he goes that route rather than the current pick....video game designer. :)
