When Good Men Do Something: Redeeming Politics for Your Family

By Bill Smith (Contact)

Few words make us cringe like the word politics. Give us telemarketing; give us overcooked asparagus or customer service with a very foreign accent. Give us a traffic ticket on the way to a root canal, but don’t give us more politics.

Even in a normal year, pretending we care about politics is politically incorrect. By the time Presidential Election Day arrives in America, even those with a high tolerance for political machinations wonder if anarchy or dictatorship might be preferable. However, it is an unwillingness to grapple with the messy business of politics that sometimes leads nations to anarchy and/or dictatorship.

Like avoiding a root canal, refusing to come to grips with our political process eventually leads to real harm. How can we help our children constructively accept the pain of politics and avoid the harm that befalls an apolitical society? How do we help them rise above the inertia of our own indifference or disdain for the political process and train children to stand up for what is right in the public arena?

Perhaps Edmond Burke, the 18th century British Member of Parliament, said it best: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” As homeschooling parents concerned about the triumph of evil in our society, let us resolve to make politics a part of our children’s training. In raising our children to positively impact rather than be overpowered by politics, we do well to incorporate healthy attitudes, information, education, association and participation.

Attitudes

How many times in the past year have our children heard the nouns politics and politicians coupled with the adjectives stupid, crooked and other more colorful descriptors? Now, how many times did they hear those words from our own mouths? (Ouch! I told you politics is painful.)

The first lesson most children must learn is a new attitude about politics, and they will learn that attitude from us. When I was a boy, one of the less reverent phrases bandied about on the public school playground concerning an insufferable situation was that “It is enough to make a preacher swear.” It was okay to use coarse speech with hateful intent if the enemy or situation was bad enough. As parents, we must guard against hate speech. We must love and pray for politicians—even for those who would despitefully use us.

Separate the politician from the actions and values they represent. Hate evil and love evil doers. Pray for politicians and their supporters and encourage children to do the same. Pray, too, for just causes and against evil schemes.

We don’t let our children by with booing when they see a bumper sticker supporting a candidate or cause we oppose. We don’t allow them to gloat when the same candidate or cause loses the election. We do encourage prayer for, and celebration of, victories.

It is true that politics has its place in the whole of life. Perhaps the gap between an American election in November and a presidential inauguration in January is a good season to disengage from the heat of the political process. Our children need to see us push back from politics, as well. They need to understand that politics has a time and place. We can show them, through our attitudes and speech, that proper time and place and the responsible and godly exercise of good citizenship.

Information

Even to the political activist, information about political campaigns and issues can overload the senses. In an election year, the onslaught is like a hurricane. How do we filter information for our children and yet make sure they are not ignorant of the various political currents that promise (or threaten) to shape our world? One way is to just let them watch all the television news they want and wade through whatever web site they find. As homeschoolers, that is probably not the option we will select.

A certain degree of exposure to popular culture and the talk of the day is difficult to keep from our children’s eyes and ears. Even little ones pick up comments from uncles, the postal clerk, the neighbor and other sources. When our youngest was four, we discovered something of what she was hearing when she asked us why she received only coins for her weekly allowance and not paper money. “When you are older, you will have paper money,” we assured her, “That is big money.”

“Big money!” she exclaimed, “Oh, you mean taxes?”

Unless we make very radical choices (and some families we know have), our children will see and hear about politics, whether we like it or not. We must be alert to help them interpret what they hear. When they have heard more than is appropriate for their maturity level—whether about an office-holder’s indiscretions (we call it sin) or the pursuit of alternate lifestyles—we must be ready to turn lemons into lemonade. Explain the issue in a way they can understand and accept, even while guarding their hearts. It isn’t easy, but politics is an arena that often presents such opportunities, welcome or not.

Beyond the defensive position, we can gain our children’s trust that we are a reliable source of the political news they need or want to know. We can give age-appropriate reports at meal times. We can assign to older children specific articles from newspapers, magazines or the web—readings we have already screened that keep them up on the issues and campaigns. If we satisfy both their hunger and need for information, then they are less likely to go looking for it where we don’t want them to go.

For the older child with a heightened interest in politics, seek out trustworthy information sources for them. There may be sources we can let them peruse without too much concern for overexposure or being led astray from our values.

Attitudes and information are important issues for every family in a society dependent on the political process. At the least, we should be ready to take defensive positions when our children are exposed to bad attitudes about politics and an unhealthy excess of information. At best, we have opportunities to take affirmative steps to make sure our children have healthy attitudes and receive information that leads them to good political choices later in life.

Education

Since we are home educators, after all, we have a duty to train our children in the foundational underpinnings of our system of government. In the United States, documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are keys to understanding. Mature and motivated students will take interest in a text like Original Intent by David Barton to understand the intentions of our nation’s founders and how to read the Constitution through their eyes.

Arm children with an understanding of the structure and various levels of government and with the names of current day leaders, like president, governor and mayor. To get up to speed on current issues, we go to sources like wallbuilders.com and townhall.com, to name just two.

Also vital is an accurate reading of the nation’s history, not necessarily the versions found in today’s standard textbooks. Find sources you trust to lead you to accurate portrayals of our nation’s beginnings and development. Among sources we trust for historical perspective are The Notgrass Company, Diane Waring and TruthQuest Children’s Ministries.

Nothing brings political history alive quite like getting to know the history makers. Teach younger children who founded our nation and who shaped it along the way. Introduce all children to principled political leaders they can admire and emulate. As a politically conservative family, we recently obtained videos of Ronald Reagan’s most noteworthy speeches and of his extraordinary funeral ceremony. Make sure your children know about one or more admirable political figures. Older children gain inspiration and insight from reading biographies.

Association

A step beyond knowledge, understanding and making wise choices in the voting booth is joining organizations that keep you informed. Political parties may come first to mind when we think of associating with political causes. Yet, many organizations focus on a particular issue, like Right to Life, or a range of issues, like Eagle Forum/Teen Eagles. Such organizations are often referred to as advocacy groups. Home School Legal Defense Association offers Generation Joshua to focus youth on political issues and action. Making association with advocacy groups supports particular candidates only to the extent that the candidate supports the issues around which the group is focused.

Whether political party or advocacy group, when a family joins, subscribes to a mailing list and/or attends meetings, they learn a great deal more about the political process than the average citizen. Our children are members of a youth club that studies the foundation and history of our nation and which discusses current political issues. I don’t propose that every family join such associations, but these are excellent options for those who want to go a step beyond the norm.

Participation

A second step beyond the norm is actual participation in the political process. In a sense, whatever we do or don’t do as citizens is participation in the process. Not voting for candidate A is, in a sense, like voting for candidate B. Our children’s political education began on Election Day. We carried or wheeled our babies into the voting booth. We let our preschoolers push the buttons or pull the levers. (No, not that button!) We explained to them why we vote and why we vote the way we do.

Beyond voting, however, is participation in political campaigns. Our children have applied mailing labels to campaign literature, attended rallies supporting various causes and delivered encouragement (in the form of baked goods) to the offices of state lawmakers. As a family, we have shown up at city hall and at the statehouse to demonstrate citizen support on key votes. Our oldest daughter served as an intern for a lobbyist at the state legislature, getting to know the players and how the process really works.

These levels of participation may go well beyond your comfort zone or the level you believe is right for your family or a particular child. Yet, consider all the options, both for what impact your family might have in the political arena and for the informed citizenship your children will take with them into adulthood.

If we homeschool, then we have already made a commitment to a better future. Whether we want our children to one day have their names on the ballot or carry the banner for a just cause, or if we simply want them to make wise voting decisions, we have many opportunities to show them that politics needn’t be a dirty word. And, if you don’t like the results of this year’s election, consider how you and your children can make a difference in years to come. Work and pray to “let judgment [justice] run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.” (Amos 5:24)

Bill Smith is father to two home educated girls and husband to one extraordinary homeschool mom. He began his career as a newspaper reporter, was a communication coordinator for a Christian mission, and now he writes grant proposals for his local food bank in Nashville, TN. Bill and his family operate Sweet Home Press, offering curriculum to home educators (www.sweethomepress.com)