Tomorrow I am taking my daughter to the local County Convention for
our chosen political party. We probably won't stay long - her little
activity backpack doesn't keep her occupied forever in a crowded auditorium
on a Saturday - but I will consider every minute of the
experience an important act of parenting.
Democracy is kind of a joke without good citizens and good citizens
are hard to find in this day and age. In spite of my tireless efforts to
educate the electorate on and around the University of North Texas campus
during the early nineties, the majority of Americans still have no idea how
much of the real work of democracy is done in the precinct conventions that
meet after the polls close in primary election years, and then in the
county, state and national conventions of the parties. It is these
conventions that truly decide party platforms, presidential nominees and
more. They are important, but so poorly attended that it
is not uncommon for a precinct convention to be in the position of needing
to nominate 18 delegates to the county convention out of a group of five or
six attendees. Kind of pathetic, isn't it?
It is very important to me that my daughter grows up understanding the
importance of the democratic process, rather than partaking in widespread
apathy. To that end, she has often attended the polls with me over the
years and we even snagged her a sample election ballot to
take to school for show and tell when it was time to study the letter E at
the same time as a local election. She has attended two precinct
conventions with me and this will be her second county convention. Maybe
not enough involvement to be elected Party Chair, but it's pretty
good for a kindergartener whose parents are not politicians.
We also encourage her to write letters to "her" elected officials when
she has a concern, and she is building up a pretty good scrapbook of
responses. We have lively discussions about the pros and cons of various
political and economic systems, about why children aren't allowed to vote,
about why my husband and I aren't voting for her friend's mother. You get
the idea.
Good citizens don't grow on trees; they grow in families who model
good citizenship. If our children are the future, they must learn to shape
it. We can't expect civics class to do it if we won't. We're the ones
they're watching.
--Lone Star Ma
Lone Star Ma's Say...
by Mariah Boone
Welcome to the inaugural issue of Lone Star Ma,
the magazine of radical - excuse me, progressive - Texas
parenting and children's issues. It's not always
easy to be a progressive parent in the Lone Star
State. It far too often seems that we are living in
the world of Big Oil and Guns-R-Us. We attachment
parenting types who believe that nurturing our
children is the best hope for tomorrow can feel
powerfully lonesome at times... powerfully so. All is
not bleakness, however.
Whether any of our citizens realize it or not,
Texas happens to have some of the best laws in the
nation to protect breastfeeding, thanks to State
Representative Dianne Delisi from Temple, Texas.
(Thank you, Representative!) Sure, we also have the
concealed handgun law and some of the lowest
indicators of child well-being in the industrialized
world, but hey - nobody said that progress would be
fast and easy. Progress is slow and hard, real hard
sometimes, but buck up, little radical parenting
dogies! We can do it! Lone Star Ma truly loves Texas
and wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world.
We have beaches and space and Tex-Mex and, well,
mesquite trees. The politics will come.
I hope that Lone Star Ma (in addition to one day
making me an at-home mommy, my primary fantasy) can
serve as encouragement to the thousands of Texas
parents who want to put the nurturing of children
first in our culture (thus moving it several hundred
places up from the place that the nurturing of
children seems to currently hold on the list of our
culture's priorities). I don't hold back much and we
won't always agree, but maybe this little
work-in-progress magazine will be a place of support
for some of your values that don't get much support in
this day and age. I hope so. Keep in touch.
--Lone Star Ma
Lone Star Ma
P.O. Box 3096
Corpus Christi, Texas 78463-3096
