My 17 year old son, and Obama. [View All]

[Mother Of Four]

My son turns 18 in the beginning of October, we were talking and I had a bit of surprise.

I refuse to push my political views on my children, I believe in freedom of thought and choice even if I don't agree with them. I'm just as firmly for that freedom as I am for religious belief freedoms.

My son looked at me with very thoughtful eyes and stated "Mama, Obama is going to be our next president."

I may not agree with his thought process, but I can understand where he gets it, my son doesn't feel drawn to any one party affiliation...in his words "I believe what I believe, not some party line"

I asked him why he thought that Obama would be President...

This is some of what he said, I'll try to get it down as close as I can recall it:

Mama, you have to understand that you and people your age or older look at the world differently that we do. (Talking about young adults, or soon to be young adults) You remember the Berlin wall, the cold war, you were born in 70 and grew up with the aftermath of the vietnam war. You grew up when both parties actually stood for something, now we have all sorts of splinters coming off the old parties and there is no real line between left or right. NOW...we have centrists. Now, we have the Green Party, Libertarians...you name it.

We (the younger ones) aren't looking at all of that, what we see is how messed up our country is and how much we are being drained by trying to rule the world through threats, violence and sanctions. We see the promise of the American dream slipping through the fingers of our future, and immigrants ...who made this country, criminalized for wanting to live in a better place. We are all told that if you work hard, and get educated you will be a success. But with all our jobs going to people from overseas...that is a lie.

We are growing up watching the right and the left tear themselves apart, watching adults on television act like they are on Dawsons Creek. (I raised my eyebrows at that one)

(My son knows I support Edwards, even though his campaign is suspended)

He told me that he knows that Edwards would have done a fine job as president, and that he didn't want to offend me. He asked me "Mama, think about it. WHY do you think so many of these new voters are younger? WHY do you think all of the college students are coming out to vote for Obama?"

I couldn't answer him.

He told me that it's because he and the 20's crowd recognize that we need something bigger than right or left. That we need something/someone that can gather us all together and have us work with one another. That if we don't learn to work together, we'll start to die as a country. He mentioned Global warming, the spread of diseases, global economy.

Needless to say, I'm a little shocked and surprised.

I tried to shoot him a curve, and asked "Well...policy wise Edwards, Obama and Clinton really aren't that far apart."

He shot back "Maybe not policy wise, but right now...it's getting it DONE thats important. You could have the best plan ever created, but if you can't get people to work together it may as well be thrown out with the trash."

So I shot him the second curve ball, to see if he was listening to the parroting instead of thinking for himself "Well, don't you think that people are more attracted to his style instead of what he plans?" (I don't actually believe this, but TV rots your brain...so I tested him)

I got that wonderful teen :eyes: and a heavy sigh for that one. I also got the Moooom (pause) c'mon!

He then went on to say that it's IMPORTANT we have a president that can inspire us, the more inspiration the better. The more riled up the people, the more likely any elected official will be to carry out what we as a people want. The more involved we as a people get, the less likely corrupt politicians will get re-elected. Even less likely someone like Bush will get elected for a long time.

All I could do was :wow:

I love my kids.