Election Day Hi – Jinx

So in a cute development this morning my five year old’s Pre-K teacher set up a mock election for her Pre-K class to participate in. It was too cool to look at. There was a little privacy booth complete with photocopied pictures of the candidates for the children to circle the aspirants of their choice. And this was completely unexpected so parents did not have time or enough information to coach their children on their own voting preferences.

I was so amused and tried to chant the name of the nominee of my choice to my baby’s ears but was quickly shooed out of the room for trying to influence the electorate. Well cut to 12:45 pm when I picked up my daughter only to see a glum face. I enquired as to the cause and the teacher happily blurted out the candidate of my daughter’s choice. To my surprise my child was unhappy because the teacher was saying that she had voted for a particular candidate, a charge which she vehemently denied, and then began to sulk about it. It was almost as if she expected to be chastised for her vote.

Quickly I tried to reassure her that her vote was her choice and she was entitled to her opinion and there was no such thing as a bad or wrong vote. To the contrary I reasoned, what was a reprehensible act is having the facility to let your voice be heard and not taking full advantage of that ability! She was just interested in the fact that her ballot did not go to the candidate that she intended to choose and was so crestfallen by same.

Subsequently, while we were waiting for her older sister to be dismissed, another favorite teacher saw her downcast face and enquired like I did as to the matter. When I told her, she was almost visibly offended and asked in an accusatory tone “So is that a bad thing?” Realizing that this could be a supporter of the other candidate I immediately backpedalled and tried to say that because there was a majority in the class my daughter was objecting to the fact that she did not have a chance to be a part of the winning ballot group. Right then and there I began to really get how much of a personal choice this was and even to a five year old the right to keep your selection private is sacred and both the well meaning teacher and myself had unintentionally violated her suffrage entitlement – if a five year old can have one!

I guess the moral of this story is that as we keep living, we keep learning.

Results of the Pre K vote:

Barack Obama 11 John McCain 4 Margin of error +/- 1

Selah.