Babies

T.A. Barnhart

As I got on the #19 bus to come home yesterday afternoon, a new mom was folding up her stroller while her mom, a new grandmother, held the baby. When I say “new,” I mean the baby could not have been more than a week or two old. The original noob. The sight of this threesome was particularly poignant to me at that moment. Only minutes earlier, I had delivered my baby to his grandmother’s care. But there were a few differences.

My baby, my younger son, is 19; and, on Friday, he had completed basic training at the Coast Guard Training Center, Cape May, NJ. I flew out Thursday so I could be there for the ceremony (and I spent most of the ceremony wondering where the hell he was; I did not realize he was playing trumpet in the band!). We then spent the weekend in Baltimore and Washington, DC, discovering an amazing pizza joint and seeing some of the nation’s iconic monuments — and, we think, that was Dick Cheney leaving the White House in the small motorcade.

In three days, Jesse reports for duty to the USCGC Midgett in Seattle. Then, in mid-January, the Midgett heads up to Alaska to patrol the dangerous winter seas, not for those nasty Russians a certain governor has been keeping her eagle eye on but for hapless fishermen trying to make a living while surviving the ocean that provides that living. This is no childish endeavor; this is man’s work (and, of course, in the Coast Guard, woman’s work). Coast Guard basic training is eight weeks of hard work and ugly monotony; he made it out with flying colors and has no personal doubts about his ability to perform as a member of Midgett’s crew.

I don’t either: I know he’ll do great. Nor do I have doubts about the abilities of my first baby, my older son who will be going to Iraq next year. I don’t like that Alex is an excellent soldier or that he has no qualms (that I know of) about doing that "duty." But he is proving himself to be a man, a grown-up, an adult who has made his own choices and is now living them out. Had I known my baby would grow up to make this choice, you know for damn sure I would have done a lot of things much differently over the years. But that’s the problem: We have no idea where our babies are going to go. They just go, and while we do our best to prepare and guide them, they are the ones who make the choices and live their lives.

Two weeks ago, a new generation of voters stepped up for the first time and they helped changed the world. Both of my sons were among them, both voting for the very first time for president. And like me, who voted for that office for the tenth time, they cast their vote for Barack Obama. (I got one thing right in their upbringing.) Most of the new voters, young adults aged 22 and younger, voting in their first presidential election, cast that same vote — and they did so in greater proportions than for many years. These new voters (and some of their elders, of various ages) are no longer babes; they have become grown-up citizens.

But no grown-up is ever fully — grown-up. Young adults may have made grown-up choices and are living lives of intense responsibility and meaning, but almost all of them still have huge amounts to learn. In time, they’ll look back and confess to being amazed at how young they were in 2008. Yes, they helped put Obama in the White House, and they completed their educations and served their country and worked their tails off and took it all seriously while having as much fun as possible — they tried to be mature and adult but, in so many ways, they still have a lot o growing-up to do.

Not that we dare tell them that. But if we, those of us who have more years, more scars and tears, more hard-earned lessons, more of the joys and pains our no-longer-babies are going to be gaining in the coming years; if we expect that their vote on November 4th means that democracy is saved and we have a new generation of political participation and enlightenment in front of us — well, no, sorry. That’s not the way it works.

Change is never anything more than a new beginning growing from the place something else has culminated. The amazing results of November 4, including the votes of so many young people, signalled, I think, the end of a period of overwhelming cynicism and despair; people really did vote for hope. The election of Barack Obama, which everyday grows more amazing in retrospect (at least to me), was, literally and symbolically, an opening of the doors of democracy. Right now, there is a party in the streets — outside the doors.

We have to get folks inside. It’s not nearly as much fun in there. It requires learning, and paying attention, and communicating with “politicians,” and all kinds of things not nearly as mind-blowing or fun-fun-fun as electing the first African-American president. But it’s what the grown-ups do, and our new voters — of whatever age — have to be shown that if they truly are no longer babies in our polity, they really do need to behave like grown-ups.

But we cannot tell them that. As any parent or teacher knows (or ought to know, harumph), what we tell kids matters about a zillion times less than what we show them. Those of us who consider ourselves political adults have to model the behavior we hope to see from our young people. We have to stay focused and involved, and, for gawdsake, we have to make the whole thing fun. Few people are going to hang around to be drearied out of politics, including this old-timer.

That little baby I saw on the bus yesterday will be voting for president in about 2028. What can we hope he or she will see in the political world by then? Will we have slid back into the old politics by failing to help our own babies grow into responsible citizens? Or will we have the kind of democracy progressives (and even many conservatves) dream of because we led the way with our own participation, excitement and energy?

Doing politics as part of everyday life has not been something most people have found enjoyable or even worthwhile. Let’s change that. Let’s discover how to make being involved and responsible doable, meaningful and a part of a well-rounded life. Otherwise our babies will grow up into a world they’ll want no part of politically, and we’ve seen how badly that goes: Too many babies never grow up at all.

By T.A. Barnhart Nov. 18, 2008