[luckystarmom]

My 4th grader son is getting interested in politics. I've been trying to tell him the difference between republicans and democrats.

He got very angry when I said that the democrats think that everyone should have health care, and that they want the rich people to help the poor people. My son went on about (without my prompting) "What's wrong with working hard. The rich people worked hard. They deserve to keep their money. I'm defintely a republican. I think Mrs. Connoly (a teacher) is a democrat." Mrs. Connoly teaches "science". It seems she is very worried about the rain forests. My son thinks it is so boring. She wants them to donate money to help the rain forests. My son is so sick of her.

Since he's young, I don't say anything really nasty about democrats. My son is catching on real quick.

[eyespysomething]

Ha ha. My second grader thinks his teacher is a democrat!

[riri]

LOL. My daughter will be ready for all these arguments when the time comes. I hope. She is only in the first grade but very bright and we have some good conversations.

Recently, we had the age old discussion of why things just can't be free and why everyone can't just have alot of money. It is fun to teach a first grader the concept that money creates incentive for people to work to have the things they want. If the incentive is taken away so is the desire to work and produce things. I told her about a society that tried that technique in the not too distant past failed miserably and made very little and the people had very little.

She seemed to grasp, at least, some of it.