My Body, My Choice

“My body, my choice.”

This mantra of the pro-choice movement has taken on new meaning in our family.

No, there is no unwanted pregnancy.

This quote is from our 7 year-old grandson when articulating his rights in a discussion about restarting violin lessons this month.  Lightly Row v. Wade, I suppose.

Aside from the priceless humor, his assertion of his rights reveals a seldom noted dimension of the current political environment.  While adults (at least chronological adults)  yell at and past each other, children are taking it all in. 

The literature around the strength of parental influence is complicated to say the least.  One might think that children hew closely to parents’ political views, but research suggests that this is not necessarily the case.  At a young age, children will adopt parents’ political affiliation without much thought.  I was a Democrat long before I knew what it meant.  I also found that my political identity could be embarrassing.  During the 1956 presidential election my 4th grade teacher in a small upstate New York town asked how many of our parents were voting for Eisenhower.  All hands shot up - except mine.  I was the sole Stevenson vote and it felt as awkward as saying, “Under God,” during the Pledge of Allegiance.

Many factors influence the extent to which children will share their parents’ views as they gain independence, but the current educational and media environments are cause for deep  concern.  In the past, a common public education would at least provide a milieu in which students might differentiate themselves from their inherited biases. That is decreasingly the case.

I recently completed a long-form piece on civics education for Yellow Scene Magazine, a monthly publication in and around Boulder, CO.  Research yielded troubling trends.

Civics education has been in steady decline for decades.  As demonstrated by the breathtakingly ignorant comments by politicians, this is alarming.  Just two examples: 

“The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church. That is not how our Founding Fathers intended it.” -  Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO)

In a recent interview, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) said, “Our government wasn’t set up for one group to have all three branches of government — wasn’t set up that way.  You know, the House, the Senate, and the executive.”  

It is of limited value to have strong political views with little or no understanding of the elegant constitutional system in which citizenship must be practiced.  A 2018 survey showed:

2/3 of Americans could not pass the United States Citizenship Test.  

81% of those under age 45 failed.  

60% don’t know how many justices sit on the Supreme Court.  

Only 24% know why the colonists fought the British.  

And just for humor, 2% believe climate change caused the Cold War.

Even more alarming is the rapidly disintegrating common foundation of information on which civil society depends. The old saying, “You are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts,” is no longer true. Lurking somewhere in cyber-land are“facts” to support any crackpot opinion you might choose.  Consider these statistics:

92% of Democrats believe that former president Trump threatened democracy with his post-election actions.  Only 19% of Republicans believe that to be true.

61% of Republicans believe Trump won the 2020 election.

48% of Americans between 18-29 believe voting doesn’t matter.

Only 34% of Americans are confident that major newspapers and television stations are accurate and fair.

Only 7% get information from a major newspaper; 1% from a local paper.

58% of those polled believe our constitutional democracy no longer works.

So in addition to Jack’s co-opting “my body, my choice,” what are today’s children learning that will inform their future points of view and political acts?  

There is growing evidence that social media is now the primary source of information for children and adults.  And, as is abundantly clear, social media drive us further into partisan enclaves, not closer to the truth.

Not only is civics education in decline, America’s schools no longer provide a common foundation on which a democratic society must rest.  “School choice” is enabling a smorgasbord of ideological options so that children will be steeped in the values and political proclivities of their parents.  Additionally, parents are adamantly asserting their “rights” to ban books, ban the accurate teaching of history, and eliminate any reference to gender and sexual identity. 

In the 19th century, Horace Mann championed civics instruction in a free public system as necessary to unify heterogeneous groups of students.  This is more needed than ever, but the system is under constant assault.

This is a serious threat to the survival of our democratic republic, happening in plain view.  Too few are paying attention.  If we lose our common public system of education, we’ll never get it back.