What Would Young Children Vote For?

Children are rarely surveyed or polled about anything important. Oh sure, you can find plenty of "data" on what they want to be when they grow up and I imagine there is quite a bit of marketing research out there in private hands, but when it comes to what children really want from their lives, especially preschoolers, we have little more than anecdotes.

The few surveys I've seen, however, tell us that what children seem to want most is more time with their families. This is obviously not true for children with toxic home lives, and teenagers might be more focused on their friends, but this result rings true, at least when it comes to the young children I've known. 

If you want to stir people up, say at a dinner party, try suggesting that voting should be the right of every citizen from the moment of birth. Most will assume you're joking, but I've found that even the most open-minded of adults scoff at the idea. They're too immature. They're too irrational. They're too emotional. They can't comprehend the complexities. They're too easily manipulated. They're too frivolous. You know, the same arguments that were used to argue against enfranchising women and racial minorities. If our current political situation has taught us anything it's that immaturity, irrationality, and emotionalism aren't the exclusive domain of children. It's obvious that adult voters are also confused, easily manipulated, and frivolous. Those are not childish traits -- they're human traits.

But, I'm not here to argue for giving children the right to vote (although there are interesting arguments to be made), I'm only pointing out that if they could vote, they would likely be on the side of social and economic policies that allow their parents and other loving adults to spend more time with them. 

I imagine they would vote for parks, libraries, and other places where they could hang out with their families. 

They would likely vote for shorter and more flexible work hours, more paid time off, and child care right there where their parents work. 

The young children in my life know that the solution to homelessness is to give people homes; the solution to hunger is to give people food; and the solution to poverty is to give people a living wage. 

They would vote to take smartphones away from their parents and other loving adults during family time. 

They would vote for any policy that caused their parents to worry less so that they could live more in the moment.

In short, I'm confident that children, if left to vote in their own best interest (without manipulative adults inserting themselves with their "pragmatic" objections or kooky economic theories) would vote for the most family-friendly agenda in history. They would vote to spend more time with their families and they would want that for other kids as well.

Is that immature? Irrational? Not to me and I expect not to you. 

Of course, I don't expect that we will be giving children the right to vote any time soon, but I sure like the idea of a political movement based on the premise of more family time.

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"Teacher Tom, our caped hero of all things righteous in the early childhood world, inspires us to be heroic in our own work with young children, and reminds us that it is the children who are the heroes of the story as they embark on adventures of discovery, wonder, democracy, and play." ~Rusty Keeler

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