I try not to be guilty of it, but it seems like a hard thing to avoid. My wife recenly raised some good questions on this subject. Dispite my upbringing to the contrary, I am a fairly liberally-minded Democrat (which should come as little surprise to any of my regular readers). My wife is similarly so. We both know who we plan to vote for come November … as does our 4-year-old daughter.
My wife and I have made a concerted effort to answer our daughter’s curiosity about the current affairs of politics in as objective a manner as possible. We have not hidden our opinions, but we have not been negative about those we find unfavorable. We try to explain the differences as simply and clearly as we can such that she will get it enough to feel informed and involved. She tends to side with us, probably because we are her parents and she assumes we know best. But she has also had opportunity to have issues matter to her and help her take a more informed stance of her own (again, I refer to my wife’s recent story).
The trouble is this: to what extent do we atempt to withhold our bias? Certainly I want my kids to form their own opinions about the world and the direction it needs to be steered. And while I would be happy if they shared my opinions on such matters, I would not think less of them if they didn’t. But it would be hard to go for long without my own opinions being apparent, and maybe that is ok. I think one CAN be open about these issues and biases and still foster independent formation of ideas in their children. The key is being honest and upfront (in an ideal world, the candidates would be too).