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Campaigning with children’s lives

The 2012 American presidential campaign, like many political contests, sought to sway parental voters by playing to their concerns about their children’s futures. One major candidate ran advertisements suggesting that mothers should be less concerned about his position on abortion and more concerned about the long-term effects of government debt on the children they already have. The other major candidate reminded parents that the desire to preserve their children’s access to affordable health care should strongly influence their Election Day choice. Both politicians engaged in photo opportunities with supporters’ babies and posed with their own children and grandchildren, using children as ‘decorations’ (Liebel 2008, 4) to underscore ‘family man’ claims. Images of school children in well-resourced and organised classrooms rolled on television screens as candidate voice-overs touted commitments to public education. Cherub-faced toddlers smiled out of strollers as actors posing as prospective voters enumerated why one candidate or the other was the right man to protect America’s hopes for its children. It seemed that children were at the heart of the election and each vote characterised as a referendum on what constitutes children’s true needs. Yet, all of this rhetoric and visual posturing was called into question just one week before the election when a mother posted a video online of her four-year-old daughter crying and saying, ‘I’m tired of Bronco Bama [sic] and Mitt Romney’ (Evans 2012). Her plaintive complaint went viral, touching a nerve among American voters weary after months of campaign sound bites and robo-calls. A real child, as opposed to a commercial-prop child, gave voice to what many adults were thinking: that political squabbling does little to further children’s well-being and may even leave some children (and adults) crying out for something different. Four-year-old Abigael’s tears remind us that politicians often see children more as archetypes of innocence and dependence than as embodied individuals with useful perspectives on what is right and good for them and for society. Ethicist John Wall writes, ‘The experiences of children need to become new lenses for interpreting what it means to exist, to live good lives, and to form just communities – for the sake of children and adults both’ (Wall 2010, 1). Stock images of childhood obscure the more complex realities of actual children’s lives. Understanding who children really are requires politicians to observe children at play, talk with them about their hopes and dreams, invite their questions about social issues and encourage them to engage in ethical reflection. Taking real children seriously means letting them participate in electoral politics on their own terms rather than solely in roles scripted by candidates. Some scholars even suggest that direct representation in the political process through children’s suffrage is necessary to ensure children’s wellbeing, arguing, ‘Children’s political rights should be exercised not only indirectly International Journal of Children’s Spirituality Vol. 17, No. 4, November 2012, 263–264