The children are watching
“Hey, Mom! We’ve got Obama and Clinton FIGHTING!”
Say what?
Mini-Me, age 9, and a friend (also 9) are in the next room playing computer games. Last I checked, the game was Club Penguin. So of course, this little announcement from my budding Don King warranted an investigation.
Seems MM and friend ventured onto an online gaming site I’ve never heard of and found a game called “Street Fight” which lets players pit the two Democratic front-runners against each other mano a mano (y pie a pie) in front of the White House as a group of…who? undecided voters maybe?…looks on. Of course, Bill has to make an appearance as well.
I asked MM which candidate she’d chosen for the battle. You would have thought I’d asked her if she was wearing clean underwear. “Obama, Mom!”
If it were up to Mini-Me and the other third graders at her school, Obama would win PA’s April 22nd primary hands down. Recent lunch and recess conversation has centered on HRC as “a sore loser”, “not playing fair,” and, inexplicably, “against young people.”
In our house, we’ve talked in age-appropriate terms about what the candidates stand for, and about the historical moment–how our next president could be the first woman or the first black person to hold the office. A year ago, Mini-Me–who had been a die-hard Kerry supporter, complete with button on her preschool backpack, and a mean side-eye to neighbors with Bush signs in their yards–voiced her support for Clinton: “We’ve had boy presidents before, but we’ve never had a woman president before.”
Me: “We’ve also never had a black president before.”
MM: “I know. But I still want her to win. And then I can be the 2nd woman president when I’m old enough.”
Fast forward one dirty campaign season later, and my girl is all about Obama. My support of him apparently carries less weight than the negative stuff she’s heard about HRC from her peers at school, most of whom are white. I confirmed much of the chatter she’d heard about HRC, and this strengthened her resolve.
How this gaming site got past the parental control filter I have installed, why MM went to a site we never discussed before, and the consequences of violating my “No fighting games at Mommy’s house” rule…are all topics beyond the scope of this blog entry. What I’m thinking about here is what kids are learning about politics, elections, and civility from watching this current campaign season unfold. Unlike me at her age, my daughter realizes that elections are about more than just casting votes. More innocence lost, but I have mixed feelings about this. By the time my kids are old enough to vote themselves, they will be far more savvy about campaigning and politics than I was when I cast my first vote. I was mostly clueless and hopeful. My wish for them is that as voters they would be wiser, critical, maybe even cynical, but not completely jaded. And somehow, still hopeful.
More importantly, my wish for them is that they would demand candidates who are worthy of their votes, and never have to choose the lesser of two evils to lead this country and represent us to the world.
While looking into “Street Fight”, I found a Newsweek piece by N’Gai Croal about a Drudge Report about a Smoking Gun report about a related game, “Presidential Paintball.” (Say that five times fast!)
If news and blog coverage of this ongoing saga have you tied up in knots, here’s a release for all that pent-up aggression. Until April 22nd…
[edit: Games removed because they messed up the page!]
March 18th, 2008 at 1:49 am
A die hard Kerry Supporter? WORD?
I knew of no such animal.
I thought we ALL were holding our noses as we voted.
March 18th, 2008 at 2:01 am
Well, keep in mind, she was not yet 6, so her world was very black and white. To wit: Thanks to her lefty preschool, she came home with a very definitive view of the two candidates: “They make speeches. Kerry says, ‘Vote for me, and I’ll give you beautiful homes and beautiful food and beautiful toys.’ And Bush says, ‘I love war!’”
March 20th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Whoa. I’m impressed by your daughter and her classmates’ attention to the election. I teach a Pre-GED class, and it’s a daily push to get most of my students to focus on the process! Great site, btw!
March 20th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Hi, GirlGriot…thanks for stopping by! The kids are pretty savvy; I hope the interest (and accompanying activism) is still there when they are your students’ age.