by hatfield13

Thankful Thursday

It’s the first week of school for my kids and their teacher-writer-mom, so I’m sneaking in time to blog thankfulness for the following:

~It’s been a relatively smooth start to the school year.  I love my new 7th graders, and my own kids have enjoyed their first few days.

~Tomorrow, I’ll start reading Cynthia Lord’s RULES with my students (yay!)  to get ready for her author visit later this fall (double-yay!).

~In a little less than two months, I get to vote for a new President of the United States.  I love voting — LOVE it with a capital L and with a passion I usually reserve for books and chocolate.  Every time I pull that little lever, I feel the same surge of excitement that I felt when I voted for the first time after I turned eighteen.  

-And on a related note, I’m part of an extended family with extremely diverse political views – from the extreme right to the extreme left.  My husband and I have been known to cancel out one another’s votes.  In 2000, I remember my mom asking my then-four-year-old son if he had gone to the voting booth on Election Day.

"Yep," he said proudly.

"Who did you vote with?" she asked him.

"Daddy and Mommy."

"And who did you vote for?"

"George Bush and Al Gore."

It made us laugh at the time, but now, it makes me feel thankful.  The divergent views in our family have taught my kids that there’s always more than one side to an issue, that you ought to have information to back up your opinions, that people can disagree — sometimes fiercely — and then sit down to dinner together, and that everyone gets to make up his or her own mind at the end.

Let the conversations continue… 

12 Replies on “Thankful Thursday”

  1. That’s terrific you and your husband have taught your children that it’s important to take part in voting for our president. We have done the same in my house as well. Many have forgotten or don’t even realize that people gave their lives for us to have the right to participate in this great event.

  2. Wow, I’m always amazed when people can get along in a marriage while voting for different people. That would never work in my house! We disagree on religion but we’re both too passionate about politics to disagree there…

  4. Kate, I feel the same way about voting… my daughter loves to come into the voting booth with me. Growing up, my family had feisty political discussions. My parents often “cancelled each other” out in the voting booth. It made for lively dinner conversations!

  5. My husband and I almost always cancel out each other’s votes. That’s what gets me to the voting booth some years. I have a responsibility to go cancel out his vote.

  6. Yes, I agree. In our house, getting your learner’s permit at 16 was optional, but registering to vote at 18 was not. I was extremely proud of my daughter for taking the time to re-register to vote in a swing state when she started going to college in Ohio.

    And though I’m personally proud to be to the left of liberal, I strongly believe that nothing gets accomplished if people don’t discuss political differences and points of view, because I find that when you engage in those discussions, people’s visions often have a lot more common ground that we think–we simply differ on the way to get there. If only the candidates would also stick to policy, and stop focusing their campaigns on attacking each other.

  9. I will, Cindy! You should have seen their faces on the first day when I told them we’d be reading RULES and then announced that you’d be visiting in November… HUGE eyes!

  12. Well said. And tell your daughter she has my great respect. I hope all college students make sure they jump through the necessary hoops to vote.