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By rebecca, April 18, 2011 1:05 am

“On no!” He was down on his knees on the sidewalk, holding his head in despair.

“What? What is it, Colum?”

“Not Peggy Nash! It’s another Peggy Nash sign.”

I quickly look around to make sure nobody is hearing this. “What do you mean, Colum? What’s wrong with Peggy Nash?”

“But Mom, you told me we were rooting for the Liberals.”

***

It must have been the very first day of the federal election campaign, just as signs were starting to appear, when Colum asked me who I was voting for. I think I mumbled something like, “Oh probably the Liberals, sweetie, but we’ll see.” And that was that.

But as the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey season drew to a close, clearly the boy needed something to root for with all the die-hard loyalty of a sports fan. This has taken the rather embarrassing form of loudly cheering for the Parkdale/High Park Liberal candidate and booing the riding’s NDP candidate. (Sorry, Ms. Nash.) (Never mind that we technically live across the border in another riding — those are the signs he sees.) I’ve tried to explain that I actually think that both are good candidates (which I do) and that he shouldn’t get too carried away in the sign race.

The truth is that I’m not  politically partisan and it pained me to see my son so eager to don the colours of one party or another. (Not that it’s easy for a 5-year-old to participate in any other way.) My political views have probably mellowed out as I’ve gotten older and no longer carry the Communist Manifesto with me everywhere. (Kidding. That was just for the one class.) They’ve also become more pragmatic. A party or candidate’s ideological position on the political spectrum doesn’t necessarily carry more weight than their views on child care and maternity benefits, education or funding for extracurricular programs.

But I also care about issues that are less obviously linked to my role as a parent. Federal funding for public transportation and the arts, and policies about health care and immigration affect our lives as a whole. My views on these also reflect the kind of options I want my children to have in the city where I live. I fully expect my kids to be use public transportation to go downtown to soak up some culture in a multicultural city. The good I want for them isn’t really any different from the good I want for the nation as a whole.

My politics, therefore, are going to be a lot different from those of many other parents. Of course they are. There are families who live in the country or the suburbs and for whom public transportation is a non-issue. There are people who believe the arts are a frill and that immigrants will be competing with their children for jobs. There are as many different political views among parents as there are among anyone. This is all just to say that there’s not going to be a magical “mommy platform” that’s going to win a party the support of a whole demographic. That’s just not the way it works.

But as much as I decide how best to direct my family’s spending at the grocery store, I also shape the way my kids see the world. Is socialism a good or bad word? Is politics? The best way to raise engaged citizens is to act like ones ourselves.

Comments (4)

By rebecca, December 7, 2010 5:07 pm

The majority of us are just trying to get through the holiday season intact without tainting the joy too much for our kids. Am I right? I mean, I already know that when we go to choose our “organic” tree (is there another kind?) from the supermarket parking lot we’ll need to find a compromise between my husband’s desire to buy what the tree guy calls “the Ferrari of Christmas trees” and my desire to have some money left over for groceries. Then there will be the swearing and complaining as the needles dig into your skin and the whole, “Why can’t you hold the damn tree straight?!” episode. The kids will load up the bottom of the tree with decorations, fighting over them and destroying some in the process, almost for sure. They’ll be all hopped up on the gingerbread house I won’t let them touch until we get the tree up, and then they’ll very likely knock the whole tree down at least once. I’ll be sweeping up needles until May and pulling ornaments out of the toy boxes until … oh, look, here’s one from last year.

And that’s just the tree, my friends.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas as much as the next guy, but the holidays are stressful. So, yes, I’ll take whatever help I can get to keep the magic alive for my kids. It just so happens that the help comes in the form of an overweight, white dude in a red suit who lives on the North Pole. Whatever. I’ll take it.

Not everyone agrees, though. Daniela Syrovy of sympatico.ca’s Coffee Talk argues that Santa is nothing but a myth that celebrates materialism and magnifies socio-economic disparity. (Except she doesn’t sound like she’s writing a graduate paper in her column.) Guest blogger Grinchmommy on momlogic.com adds that Santa sets up kids for disappointment and makes a liar out of parents and is smug about how her kindergarten-aged daughter brought her classmates to tears telling them the truth about Santa. This dad made these same arguments a couple years ago, adding that it’s important to know where a gift comes from.

To which I reply, eh. If you say so. I don’t think these parents are doing their kids any grave injustices by telling them the truth about Santa. I also love the way my just-turned two-year-old daughter’s eyes light up as she talks about Santa coming to her house. My husband says the only reason he believed in Santa for as long as he did is because he knew there was no way his parents could afford the toys that Santa brought. As someone who is relatively free from upper-middle class guilt (thank you, insufferable debt load), I think that’s one of the joys of Santa Claus as a parent. You can indulge your kids wants (or some of them) once a year without undermining the basic chorus of, “Sorry, that’s too expensive. No, you can’t have that. We can’t afford that, dear.”

I believed in Santa for a while, I guess, and then I didn’t. I don’t really remember when it happened and it certainly wasn’t traumatic. I’m the oldest of four, though, so I kept playing along for a long time which was fun. The whole myth is pretty out there, let’s face it, and when I started asking the right questions I think there might have been a bit of wink, wink, nudge, nudge from my parents. I don’t know exactly how I’ll deal with Santa questions as the kids get older. (Here’s what happened to Sweetney.) I’ll probably just wing it or dodge the question altogether.

The best part of this discussion is how riled up people get in the comments. Like, I for one think Santa is wonderful and who do you think you are?! Settle down, people, the Santa Claus propagators among us are still a clear majority and the fat man is going nowhere anytime soon. If only so we can distract the kids from the family politics happening at the dinner table.

Comments (13)

By rebecca, November 11, 2010 2:22 am

Update: Amazon has since pulled the book from it’s Kindle store and I’m really quite pleased. I would still have defended their choice to carry everything and anything had they stuck to their guns, but it sounds like there was precedent for them to pull a product anyway. It will be fun to watch them squirm at the next public outrage. Continue reading 'A Mother’s Defence of Amazon and the Whole Pedophile Guide Thing'»