what would joe biden do?

Last week Friday, Kid A and I were lucky enough to get the chance to head to my alma mater to hear Dr. Jill Biden speak at a Twin Cities campaign stop. It was mostly college kids, a smattering of other supporters, and my kiddo, the youngest in the room by more than a decade, if I had to guess. 

We got a couple of curious glances from folks, which wasn’t unexpected. He’s only six, and much of what she spoke of went over his head. But he’s a smart kid, curious and sensitive, and he understands a lot more than people give him credit for. On the drive from his school we talked about education and why it was so important, how much it costs and how President Obama and Vice President Biden were working to make sure that learning continued to be accessible. He gets that. We talked about healthcare, and how thanks to the president his baby brother’s preexisting condition won’t keep him from getting the care he needs. A understood that, too.


It’s not entirely new to him. He helped me campaign in 2008. In 2010, during the Wisconsin gubernatorial election, I actually got a phone call from the elementary school because in his earnestness to remind his classmates and anyone who might listen (the school was a polling place), he encouraged them, when unsure, to ask themselves, “What would Joe Biden do?” I thought it was hilarious, the school was less amused.

It comes as no surprise, then, to know that we are big fans of the Obamas, big fans of the Bidens. I am a big fan of including your kids early in the political process, no matter what side of the aisle you sit on. We took the entire family to Madison to protest in January of last year, after Governor Walker decided that his executive authority was a bulldozer by which he intended to flatten the state we loved. The kids come voting with us.


We talk about politics, and current events. He’s six, and his brothers are three and six months and have less capacity for awareness, obviously, but they learn by watching. What is important to us makes a difference for them.

See, it was how I was raised. One of my earliest memories is doorknocking for then-Wisconsin Governor Tony Earl in his (failed) reelection campaign. We talked about the news at the dinner table every night. I was encouraged to care about what was happening in my city, in my state, my country. The world. When there was an election, we went down to the National Guard Armory. They still had big machines back then, and I can remember pulling with all my might on the big lever that drew the curtain closed, watching my parents flick switches and being truly excited that someday it would be my turn. In second grade we formed a peace club, my best friend and I. We wrote letters to President Reagan calling for nuclear disarmament. I didn’t think it was unusual or exceptional at the time. Honestly, I still don’t.

Is there such a thing as too young? I don’t think so. Because in raising me, my parents raised a child who was engaged in the political process almost from the time I could talk. I understood why it mattered. I appreciated the power of the vote, and the importance of being an informed voter. And thirty-two years after knocking on doors down our street on Jacobson Avenue in Madison, I can’t think of a single general election I’ve missed, and I can count primaries on one hand.

We live in a country where our voter turnout percentages are damn near shameful. We have an electorate that is frequently mocked by late night television programming because they can’t identify their vice president in a lineup. We need to be doing more with our kids, not less. My parents didn’t indoctrinate me into a specific ideology, although we share many political beliefs. But they did teach me that as part of my birthright as an American citizen I had certain responsibilities that generations have fought and died to protect, and I take that very seriously. I take passing on that knowledge to my own boys very seriously.


So find a cause that matters. Volunteer with your kids. Talk about what happens on their 18th birthday, and why they don’t have to wait to get involved until they can cast a ballot. Get them excited now, before conventional wisdom and popular culture tells them it’s only cool to be indifferent.

On the ride home, A was vibrating with excitement. He talked about our visit to Washington, DC, about Dr. Biden and her husband, who we think is the coolest, pretty much, and about how important the election is. He is six, but he gets it. We can’t be afraid to talk to our kids about politics, because they’re next in line for that torch, right? What happens in November affects him, and even if he can’t change the outcome, he still gets a voice. A life lesson for him, an important reminder for a pretty proud mama, too.