Notes on a Neighborhood

The neighborhood that I live in is very eclectic. There are wealthy people who live across the street on the lake, college kids renting, octagenarians, activists, gardeners, busybodies, etc. We like that there is a great variety of souls on our short two block street. And we thought that we would be a different and welcome addition. And just like some pet owners and their pets begin to look alike, some homeowners begin to look like their neighborhood.

We were sort of laughing the other day at some of the neighbors and their choices in cars. Two doors down, the couple each have Saabs, across the street the husband and wife both have BMWs. We thought it a somewhat hilarious and off-putting commentary about coupledom when both of us remembered that we each have an Acura!

Kid Apathy

When a friend of mine, a professional with liberal politics, decided to have a baby she confessed that she was a bit torn. While she wanted to have a child she was a bit concerned about raising a child in what is to her an uncertain future. You see, she saw An Inconvenient Truth, believes in global warming and the destruction of the environment, listens to the news of daily Iraqi skirmishes and terrorist threats, she worries about the economy, fears for minorities and the poor. She wondered whether it was irresponsible and selfish to bring a child into the world who would have to face such a mess. I countered that I thought it was exactly people like her who are concerned about these things who should be the ones to raise children. Certainly she would be able to impart upon her children the importance of contributing to the idea of making things better.

So I really shouldn't be surprised to come across a very interesting statistic that conservatives have more children than liberals. According to the 2004 General Social Survey, if you picked 100 unrelated politically liberal adults at random, you would find that they had, between them, 147 children. If you picked 100 conservatives, you would find 208 kids. Nature and nurture being what they are, it is reported that 80% of kids end up voting like their parents. And so it seems that as time goes by, in future generations there will be more conservative voters to offset the liberal ideals. Because liberals have less liberal babies, and because those liberal babies will be outvoted by conservative babies, in essence the act of NOT having babies is tantamount to giving conservatives further reign to ruin the country and the globe.

As a liberal and someone whose name will go down with the ship (I will neither have kids nor do I want them and anyway there weren't enough liberals to allow a vote for me to adopt kids), I have some initial feelings of guilt about this. Never one to shirk from a political fight, I fear that I am not doing my part. I wish someone would come out with a study that showed that the genetic makeup of a child can determine its voting record. If that were the case, I would be making regular donations to the almighty plastic cup in hopes that my liberal politics would make their way to small rural Texan towns.

But I guess there is another option for those of us with kid apathy. We can continue to intervene in the impressionable minds of children and adults everywhere. We can educate them to think for themselves instead for their parents. We can encourage them to embrace a new world from what their parents have created. In that case our ideas will live on even if our genes don't.