Issues

My oldest daughter isn't quite to the age where boys are icky. She's still living in the wonderful part of youth where, for the most part, people are just people. Yet, she seems to have an intense curiosity about how the world works. I posted before about her interest in the presidential debates, so it came as no real surprise that she was also quite interested in the election itself, both the process and the outcome. We had talks about the electoral college, the popular vote, how people in different parts of the country tend to vote, the usual stuff. Then yesterday I was truly taken by surprise.
At her school they held a mock election. They talked about the process and the importance of voting, but more importantly they discussed why they voted the way they did. From what she reported, most kids spouted information that was plucked directly from their parents news source of choice. Kids at this age are still very much under the sway of their parents, which is both cool and terrifying, so I sort of expected it. We got to discussing how you can have very good friends that hold very different political views from you, and she was cool with that. She stopped me cold in my tracks though, when she mentioned a friend who's parents "weren't supposed to be here". To him, to his family, to everyone they knew, there was only one issue. Deportation. There was no talk of taxes or being tough on terrorism or unemployment numbers. Just that one candidate had stood up in front of the world and said that he wanted to have this kid's parents rounded up and shipped back to the country they came from. He was born here. He's a top student. He's a good kid. He's an American. He loves his parents and when he went to bed last night, before the election was decided, he had a much different set of worries than my daughter did.
So we talked. For the last two months I had been stressing that one should listen to everything that a candidate has to say. Look at their stance on this and that and don't hang too much importance on any one phrase or promise. Choosing who you want to represent you as president for the next four years is a complex and thought involving process. Except when it's not. I had to concede that the world has a lot of people in it that aren't like me. Like her. Like our family. For us there are issues, for some of them there is only the issue.
I try to answer all of my kids questions as fully as I can. Math, science, politics, issues with kids or problems with teachers, I try to help them make sense of the world. They still surprise me when they bring me a question where my answer not only helps them make sense of things, but when I'm done, it has helped me make sense of things too. Parenting has many unexpected joys.