Kids and Voting

I hear so many young kids saying they don’t care about politics. or that politics is boring. they really don’t care about voting and it doesn’t make a difference to most of them one way or another. in some cases i really understand why they say it. some hear it from their parents and in a lot of cases the schools are just not teaching children the importance of voting and our political system.

I remember when i was in middle school which was 1976 we were celebrating our country’s 200 years of independence. the country was having elections that year and it was starting to heal through the pain of what was Watergate and the Vietnam war. I remember being in my history class and my teacher at the time expressing and showing us the importance that we have as American citizens to be voters that are informed of our government. to participate in this wonderful process that so many of us take for granted. I remember that year the school had parades and we held our own elections to show us how this whole process came to be. kids new who was running for office, what each party brought to the table and what they stood for. I remember learning the truth about the party system and our government.

I remember breaking ties with a lot of the views of my family especially since most of them are republicans.I would later learn to vote on issues and not on a party. that is why i became a registered independent. however you ask a sixteen year old today, who is just two years away from voting what it means to belong to one party or another and they can’t even answer that.government and history were just as important as English and math. you had to know about the rights of the individual. what it meant to have your Miranda rights red to you if you were being arrested. how roe verses wade came to be. you ask the average teenager and all they know is that abortion is legal they have no idea as to why it is legeal and how it came to pass. most of them don’t have a clue as what is the Miranda rights. what ever information they get they get from comedy central which I guess is better then getting nothing at all.

I don’t see young kids even those that can vote understand the importance of what it means. I know that in the 2004 election the democrats were counting on the young vote. they later realized on both sides that the younger generation really did not go out like they really thought they would. the Christian right made more of an impact to get people to vote and selling their views to their followers, then bush’s and kerry’s young family did to their MTV followers. if our schools, parents, politicians do not find a ways to speak to young generations and show them the importance of what it means to exercise your civil duties we are going to find ourselves with basically one party doing all the dictating.

The rights that they care for so much about and take for granted will start being taken away little by little. they don’t understand once something is lost it is not that easy to get it back.parents should take their children with them when they vote. explain the process have your children read the paper. have them listen to the news at least once a day even if after that they go back to their music, computers or televisions. politicians should not only go and speak to those that are going to vote for them at the time. politicians should make an effort to at least speak once in a while at schools so kids can ask them questions. I think that if children would see these politicians in atmosphere of their own setting they might find them of intrest.politians have to realize that the direction of this country depends on our youth. it is very sad that children from other countries know more about the politics of this country then our own youth.