Running with Scissors

Sara Peterson-Davis has worked as a newspaper researcher and reporter, as well as a communications director and consultant. She and her husband, Monty Davis, can be found in Liberty, Mo., keeping their two children from running with scissors. Contact Sara

A Broken Home

“Voting is the method by which we purchase the right to be critical of government and politicians.” Nick Davis Starbucks customer from Lawrence, Kansas.

I found this printed on my coffee cup the other day in this mid-term election year. It made me smile and think about my parents and my grandparents.

You see I come from a broken home, a politically broken one at least.

One branch of my family tree is filled with yellow dog Democrats. My Grandma and Grandpa McAdams loved Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, and thought Lyndon Johnson hung the moon.

I once asked Grandma why she was a Democrat. She told me it was because her father had said, “The Democrats always look after the little man.” And if her papa said it, she knew it must be true.

The other branch was red, white and blue Republican. My great-grandparents, according to my dad, hated Roosevelt for giving away the country with his New Deal.

I can’t remember my Grandparents Peterson having a kind word for a Democratic politician or a harsh one for a Republican.

During the turbulent 1970s, Grandma McAdams trained her toy terrier to smile at the prospect of shaking hands with Democrat George McGovern and nearly take your hand off at the mention of pressing the flesh with Richard Nixon.

You wouldn’t have known Watergate was anything but a hotel among the Petersons. While the scandal was a frequent topic of rather robust conversation with the Grandparents McAdams, among the Petersons it was a non-issue. If anything, it merely confirmed their already low opinion of Democrats.

My own home was a happy Republican one until my mom had her feminist consciousness raised. No longer Mrs. Maurice Peterson, my mom reverted back to her Democratic roots some time during the Carter Administration.

My father was stunned and confused. They had voted alike since Eisenhower. Like all children from broken homes, I had always taken it for granted that my parents would both be Republicans.

Now it was like the sun rising in the west. The Reagan years were not happy ones around our house, politically, needless to say. My parents were happily married, except for the fact that the Republicans could no longer count on carrying all the votes at our house.

Debates among the family were mostly good-natured, but heated. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that not everyone discussed politics, loudly and passionately, at the dinner table.

Now, you’d think that all these people couldn’t agree on anything, politically at least. You’d be wrong.

Every last one of them believed in the power of their vote, and in their responsibility to get to the polls and cast their ballots.

I remember my mom was beside herself one election day because life had thrown her so many minor crises that she had nearly ran out of time to vote.

It worried me when my mother was upset and I asked what was the matter.

“Because I haven’t voted yet,” she said, grabbing her coat. “It’s one of the most important things you can do.”

Legally blind, nearly deaf and confined to a wheelchair, my Grandma Peterson didn’t let all that get in the way of casting her ballot.

I imagine they would still all be represented at the polls this November if they resided in big urban cemeteries in Chicago or New York.

Instead I do it for them. I vote because they taught me that it does matter, it is my responsibility and that there are no excuses for not doing it.

I know there are a million reasons why people claim they don’t vote. I mostly hear them say it’s because they believe their vote doesn’t count.

I suspect it’s the opposite.

Pulling the lever, coloring in the circle, pushing the button and checking the box means you’re responsible for creating our government – win or lose, better or worse.

Which brings me back to the quote at the top of this column. I guess you get what you pay for.

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