Mamas, Llamas, and Votes

Today, our politically active church did not let us forget the fact that next week is election week. In fact, even the children's sermon was full of non-partisan political initiative.

Now, I'm used to children's sermons that consist of a brief object lesson involving a shoebox or a light bulb or a candy cane. In each case, all I knew as a kid was that the correct answer to any question was "Jesus."

But not so at my current church. Here, the children's sermon is usually one of the most moving portions of the service. These kids make you think. They make you reconsider the seeming simplicity of your faith.

So today, instead of the Ten Commandments or why we shouldn't tell a lie, the children's talk was about the complex history of women's suffrage.

There were several powerful moments in this short little conversation with the kids.

The first came when our pastor asked how many people in the congregation had a mother who was of voting age pre-1920 and consequently encountered a time in her life when she wasn't able to vote. Several hands shot up. Then, she asked how many people had a grandmother who was unable to vote. Nearly 3/4 of the hands went up.

It had never occurred to me how recent the suffrage movement really was until that moment. Suddenly, it became no longer some removed historical fact.

We're talking only a couple of generations ago. It's hard to imagine.

The second great moment of the children's sermon occurred when our pastor asked the kids why they thought women weren't allowed to vote back then. Our usually precocious kids didn't raise their hands. They had no guesses. They were stumped.

"Actually," Pastor Laurie said, "I'm glad you don't have an answer to that one. There were no good reasons that women weren't allowed to vote."

The congregation chuckled. We were proud of our kids. We realized that they've grown up in a world that has never told them that their gender is too uneducated, too weak, or too frivolous to vote.

I left church feeling even more driven to exercise my right to vote this election. And this led to an embarrassingly obsessive t-shirt buying frenzy. (Perhaps not the most politically-transformative way to get the word out, but nonetheless, it was fun.)

First, I got the following shirts for my mom and mother-in-law:


Then, I had to treat myself to the following:

The latter really has nothing to do with gender issues, but I've been trying to figure out how to incorporate llamas onto this blog for some time, and this is the best I can do. I mean, honestly, how could you refuse to vote for Obama when you've got this fuzzy, weird-looking creature egging you on?

Plus, who could resist the llama song?


In fact, with a few minor alterations, this could end up being our new National Anthem:


Regardless of whom you vote for, may we all remember that, unlike llamas, we as women do have the right to vote. And that's a relatively new and wonderful freedom.