Honest social studies for a three-year-old

My three-year-old son, Tony, recognizes the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates when their mugs appear on the TV news.

"That's McCain and Obama," he blurts when their photos pop up behind a couple of talking heads.

He also blurts out something else that he's heard me say in relation to those two men, which isn't going to endear me to the nice people at day care. So my wife and I decide it's time to explain just what's going on and why mommy and daddy have such strong feelings about the people in the news.

"John McCain and Barack Obama are bad men who want to tell us what to do," my wife tells Tony. "They're competing to become president of the country, and people will pick one of them for the job."

"That's right," I add. "They don't want to let us make our own decisions. They want to decide for us. That's why they want to be president."

"Your daddy voted for Mr. Barr, who doesn't want to boss us around. But he probably won't win."

Tony looks confused at this point. I don't blame him. I'm confused myself.

"Even though they're bad men, most people think either Obama or McCain will win," I say. "So they vote for the one they think will be less bossy, just like your mom did. But some people are really just big babies. They don't want to make choices, so they vote for McCain or Obama because they want somebody else to decide for them."

That's about as detailed as we get for a three-year-old, using terms he can understand. He definitely gets the idea of "bossy," since he got a time out last week for ordering around one of his friends. He was badly embarrassed -- more because his friend was so upset at being bossed around than because of the punishment.

Yeah, my take on the political system and its stakes isn't really out of the classic social-studies curriculum. That's because I'm honest, unlike most textbooks. I'm not peddling a fairies-and-rainbows version of the political process to my kid. I'm raising him with an appreciation of liberty as the core value of politics, with an understanding of politicians as the children on the playground who grew up without ever learning to keep their hands off other kids' toys, and with a healthy dose of wariness about that bossy clique of overgrown bullies called "government."

Later, I can fill in the shades of gray -- that we can have disagreements even with the "good" guys, and that the bad guys might not be all that evil if they never entered government and gained the opportunity to push people around.

I'll instruct Tony that, as with bossy kids, just because government officials tell you to do or not do something doesn't mean that you should pay them any attention. But you have to be careful about how you ignore them since they can be very mean.

And ultimately, I hope, he'll become an independent adult who, whatever choices he makes about his allegiances and his values, doesn't let other people substitute their whims for his preferences.

Of course, I want him to have a sense of perspective and to enjoy life without getting hung up on things he can't control. So I tell him the truth: Halloween should be a lot more important to him than Election Day.