you're never too sick to vote

These shoes were made for voting.

Henry is home from school today with a sore throat. He's too sick for school (awake at 4:30 SOBBING, asleep until nearly 7:15, unable to eat but not running a fever) but not too sick to go with me to vote. Or pester me CONSTANTLY about what else we're going to do today. Answer: NOTHING. You're SICK.

When we were leaving my polling place this morning, one of the workers said to Henry, "Are you going to school now?"

"Nope," he said, "I'm SICK today! I have some icky in my throat and everything tastes weird."

"Oh," she said, taking a step back. Ah, democracy. Spreading your germs everywhere.

Back to the voting, though: a week or so ago, I heard a piece on NPR about suburban women voters. The reporter said that they--we--are the swing voters in this election, because as a demographic, we are the most likely to define ourselves as UNDECIDED when asked how we will vote. Suburban women say that they are too busy raising their children to have much of an interest in politics.

This made me incredibly sad, although I understand what these women are saying. It's hard enough to keep track of all the kids' things--school and playdates and star charts and doctor's appointments. Politics? We get enough of that at PTA meetings.

But it's important that you vote today. I don't care who you vote for (although of course I wish more people voted like I do). I care that you show up. Take your kids, if you can; let them see you participating. Henry likes to feed my ballot into the machine and watch the number change; Charlie likes to plaster himself with I VOTED stickers. We talk about how many people have voted before me, and how all of them have an opinion about who our governor should be and how the state should spend it's Rainy Day Fund. We talk about how I voted and later we will talk about how everyone else voted. We will talk about what it means to disagree with the majority, and how democracy doesn't mean always getting your way, even when you feel confident that you are right and the majority is wrong. We talk about respecting other people's views, particularly when they are different from yours.

As parents, we have a responsibility to participate. For women--mothers--to say that we have no opinions about politics in this country, about the policies that decide how our children will be educated and what our military will fight for and who will have access to medical care, is naive and foolish. Your vote matters, even if your candidate doesn't win. Your voice matters, even if it seems like no one is listening.

Because your kids are. Make sure they hear you.