Kids and the Right to Vote
By Deb Lewis
 Twelve years ago, I met someone who has
continued to force me to reevaluate the way our government and society
view children. He’s a capable American citizen, informed, intelligent
and interested in the process of government. He’s my twelve-year-old son,
and although he knows more about the process and the candidates than
many adults, he won’t have the right to vote for six more years.
Lawmakers have gone to a lot of hard work and expense to make the
process of voting fair and polling places accessible to everyone. Yet
there are millions of young Americans – some as informed as my son – who
are denied participation in the process that will govern them.
When my son was very young, I watched his reasoning process grow and
change, and my understanding of human learning and ability evolved. He
was talking, understanding people and being understood without one
English lesson. He was walking without ever studying anatomy or gross
motor skills development. He surprised me almost everyday until my
narrow expectations of children crumbled and I came to realize that
every child is born suited to a life as a human. Yet, our society puts
children into a small, not-quite-ready-to-be-a-person box and tries to
hold them there.
We have in place a number of age-based laws that define when young
people are ready for certain rights and aspects of life. These laws
offer no protection to young people that could not be provided by means
other than age-based laws. Instead of considering natural and personal
abilities or limitations as factors that would determine an individual’s
readiness for ever increasing experiences and responsibilities, we set
the arbitrary criteria of age.
In Escape from Childhood: The
Needs and Rights of Children (Ballantine Books, 1974) John Holt wrote:
“I urge that the law grant and guarantee to the young the freedom that
it now grants to adults to make certain kinds of choices, do certain
kinds of things, and accept certain kinds of responsibilities. This
means in turn that the law will take action against anyone who
interferes with young people’s rights to do such things. Thus when the
law guarantees me the right to vote, it is not saying I must vote, it is
not giving me a vote. It only says that if I choose to vote it will act
against anyone who tries to prevent me. In granting me rights the law
does not say what I must or shall do. It simply says that it will not
allow other people to prevent me from doing these things.”
All these years later, our
government still says we are unqualified to vote the day before their
eighteenth birthday, but magically qualified the day after. While this is only
one of many ways young people are discriminated against, it might be the
most serious. For while the government is making laws effecting young
people, those young people are not, intern, capable of effecting
government.
One of the arguments against
eliminating voting age restrictions is that it would be unfair for mere
children to make decisions that would affect the lives of adults. It’s a
hypocritical argument when one considers all the decisions made by
adults that affect the lives of young people. These include curfew laws;
driving age restrictions; restrictions about purchase of certain types
of music, magazines, video games and movies; and compulsory school
attendance. Even worse are laws allowing corporal punishment; there is
no other member of our society who can be physically assaulted without
any means of legal recourse. Equality before the law, it seems, is not
meant for all.
While children are considered
too young to have a valid political opinion, too young to be allowed to
select their own music, too young to attempt to pass a driving test,
they are, in many states, old enough to be tried as adults if they
commit a crime.
Whatever arguments can be made
today to deny young people the right to vote have been made before in
opposition to women voting, to minority civil rights and to lowering the
voting age to 18. In the end I think it comes down to fear. Thinking
about giving power to those who’ve deliberately been made powerless
makes people nervous. This is not a new fear. In 1776, John Adams said
this: “It is dangerous to open so fruitful a source of controversy and
altercation as would be opened by attempting to alter the qualifications
of voters; there will be no end of it. New claims will arise: women will
demand a vote; lads from twelve to twenty-one will think their rights not enough
attended to; and every man who has not a farthing will demand an equal
voice with any other in all acts of state.”
Women do have the right to vote
today. Held down for more than a hundred years we are participating in
the process and our nation survived the controversy Adams feared –
evidence of the evolution of our system and a hopeful reminder that
ideas and governments can change and grow to serve all the people.
Deb Lewis lives and unschools in Deer Lodge, Montana with
her husband David and son Dylan. She’s a frequent contributor to online
unschooling forums and the Montana Unschooling Newsletter.
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