Right after the election, Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City took a trip out to a New Jersey recreation center. An anonymous donor had generously paid for the kids and their mentors to spend the day playing kickball and video games, climbing a rock wall, riding bumper cars, shooting basketballs, and taking a break for pizza, hamburgers, and popcorn. On the way home, on the dark school bus filled with tired but happy kids, some of the mentors started talking.
”How long have you been in the program?” the guy next to me asked.
“Almost three years,” I said, glancing at the 14-year-old sleeping on my shoulder.
“Three years, huh. I’m not sure I’m going to even last one.”
“Really, why?” I asked, hoping the eleven-year-old boy next to him was not listening.
“Well, after what happened on Tuesday, I may have to leave the country.”
I stared at this man for a moment, before he finally made clear he was seriously thinking about leaving the country as a result of the election. He was a well-dressed professional (meaning the jeans, t-shirt, and sneakers looked expensive), living in Cobble Hill, who liked to play rugby on the weekends. He had just moved here from San Francisco and spent some of the last few months campaigning for Senator Kerry.
There were a few scattered murmurs of agreement from the other adults as he spoke about how he just couldn’t live in a country that was run by George W. Bush. He expected things would get “worse and worse” in the next few months until he’d be forced to leave. I noticed a few of the children turned around in their seats listening to this guy. They weren’t saying anything, just taking it all in. I can only guess what a group of elementary-school kids, many of whom had moved here from other countries for a better life, were thinking when they heard that it might be time to pick up and leave again soon.
I have come to expect political chatter at events like this, and I have also come to expect that I will be the only Republican in the room. While I’m guessing that many young conservatives in New York participate in community-service activities through church groups, I have yet to find one at Big Brothers Big Sisters–an organization, by the way, whose goals are not inconsistent with conservative values.
Though sometimes I wonder why there is no political diversity in these groups, my real cause for concern is not that these kids will only meet liberal mentors. The kids will grow up and make their own decisions, I hope, and the more they finish high school and go to college, the more informed they will be. To tell the truth, if all the Big Brothers and Big Sisters lived up to my stereotypical bleeding-heart image–if they were all idealists who felt they came closer to changing the world with every plate filled at a soup kitchen–I’m not sure it would be such a bad thing.
But those liberals have been transformed of late. And so has the way they interact with children. Now their language is filled hate and fear, and ultimately a total loss of perspective on the lives we are lucky enough to lead in America. I have no problem helping children understand that politics is serious business, that voting is important, and that whom we vote for could have a real effect on the future of the country. But the message seeping through to impressionable children is that darkness has descended on this land, that our freedom will all be gone soon, that people are being sent off to the slaughterhouse against their will, and that anywhere else in the world must be better.
Talking to my “little sister,” Janice (I’ve changed her name), who recently started paying more attention to politics, I’ve realized how much misinformation she receives on a daily basis not only from her classmates, but from neighbors, relatives, and even her teachers. She has told me several times that Republicans don’t like poor people or black people, that they want to keep them from getting a good education or a decent place to live. She was even convinced that if George Bush got his way and she went to the emergency room, she wouldn’t be able to see a doctor.
But I think we reached a new level recently. In the back of a taxi the other day, I was stunned when she told me President Bush wanted to draft kids as young as ten years old to send them off to die in Iraq; that Bush and Cheney are only at war because they will personally make money off of oil in the Middle East; that since everyone in the world now hates America, we’ll be bombed again very soon, probably with a nuclear weapon. And it will all be the fault of Republicans. Janice announced proudly that 95 percent of her Catholic school in Brooklyn voted for Kerry in their mock election.
But the fact that her political views seem to align pretty closely with Michael Moore’s was not enough for the cab driver. Upon hearing that she was a little uncomfortable with some girls kissing each other at her school, he turned around and reprimanded the two of us: “It’s because 55 million people think like her that we have this president for another four years! How can people be so ignorant? What’s wrong with our education system?”
She looked at me, worried, confused, and announced again that she had “voted” for Kerry. Janice did not want to be one of the people blamed for the horrible state we are in.
Psychologists are always lamenting the loss of innocence among our children. And for these little brothers and sisters, that is particularly true. Janice lives in a two-room apartment with six other people. Her brother has been in jail. Her friends can’t pass the eighth grade. Boys want her to have sex with them. Girls she knows are cutting themselves for attention. Her mother works nights. Her home was broken into last month and everything of value was stolen. I think she has enough to be scared of without also believing that America is being governed by some murderous dictator who hates people like her.
I know that for these kids, not every day can just be about kickball and pizza, but do we have to add the weight of the world to their shoulders?
–Naomi Schaefer Riley is the editor of In Character, an adjunct fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and author of God on the Quad: How Religious Colleges and the Missionary Generation Are Changing America.