More on Voting

After a long afternoon of work in the library, I picked up Jonah from the school bus. This is our one hour of “Jonah-Mommy special time” — that one hour in the week, when he spends time with me, without his punk brother around. It’s hard to be the big brother, so I usually try to do something cool with him for that time before I start panicking about Ian.

Today, I took him to vote with me. On the way over, I talked about the two teams that were both trying to get the same job. He wanted to know which team to root for. He’s seven, so it’s tricky to how much information to spill and how much to hold back. You don’t really want your kid to know what you think about the leader of the free world. I gave him some basics.

The main point about bringing him to vote is to show him how it’s done. I told him that voting was a great responsibility and privilege that we all share. He watched me sign my name in the big book. He was momentarily distracted by a chocolate bar given to him by one of the poll watchers, but then focused again when we ducked behind the curtain of the voting booth. I let him click the X’s in Democratic column and the yeses on the ballot initiatives. Then he pushed the “cast vote” button, which is much less satisfying then pulling the big handle, and then chatted a bit with the poll workers. (Nothing spectacular to report. The old folks who run the place said that voting was brisk this morning, and slow, but steady all afternoon.)

Because I was guiding Jonah through the process today and he was watching with such large eyes, it really felt like a religious experience. The hushed room and the rituals. The voting booth as a Catholic confessional.

But there’s nothing holy about the outcome of this race. And that’s all I care about right now. I’ll be watching TV and reading the blogs all night. I’ll report info as I gets it.