E (4-year-old): Why does Mommy have a sticker?
D: Because I voted today.
E: Why does Daddy have a sticker? Did Daddy voted too?
Me: That’s right.
E: Why did you voted?
Me: Well, tell me this: who’s in charge of your clothes?
E (uncertain): Um, me?
Me: That’s right. And who’s in charge of this house?
E: Mommy and Daddy.
Me: That’s right. And who’s in charge of the roads outside?
E: Um… somebody else’s Mommy and Daddy?
Me: Well, that’s right, I guess. The people in charge of the roads are part of the “government.” And today we voted, which means we chose who we wanted to be in charge of the roads.
E: Like the men in the trucks?
Me: The garbage trucks, right, that’s part of it. And who do you think tells the garbage truck drivers what to do?
E (more confident than ever): Bob the Builder!
Well anyway, I thought that was pretty good for a spur-of-the-moment explanation. How would you explain government to a 4-year-old?
Sme way I’d explain where babies come from; tell him to look it up on Wikipedia.
Comment by Jake — Tuesday, May 6, 2008 @ 8:52 pm
Alas, Wikipedia is not so helpful. (That was the first result for “wikipedia where babies come from”.)
Comment by Sam Kington — Tuesday, May 6, 2008 @ 10:34 pm
Yeah, I can’t come up with another ‘object’ for someone to be in charge of. Roads seem pretty accessible for a 4 year old to grasp. Good job.
Comment by eric — Tuesday, May 6, 2008 @ 11:27 pm
Bob the Builder? I’d say, he would be better president than one we have! (Poland) Pass him over, please. ;-)
Also, we can make your kid prime minister.
Comment by opi — Wednesday, May 7, 2008 @ 1:39 am
The people who pay for Sesame Street. (Though at diminishing rates each year, it sometimes seems.)
Comment by Andrew Dupont — Wednesday, May 7, 2008 @ 2:12 am
The people who give Big Bird his seed. That’s pretty good!
I think the road explanation is the most practical one I’ve heard. Maybe police, too, and what ever other government services he’d recognize.
Comment by Steven Fisher — Wednesday, May 7, 2008 @ 2:22 am
That’s pretty much exactly how I *did* describe government to my four-year-old. Early last year she came to a decision and said “I want to be the government“, so she’s clearly got a grasp on what the thing’s for. Next step to explain is clearly democracy, although we had a chat about that the last time the elections came around…
Comment by Stuart Langridge — Wednesday, May 7, 2008 @ 4:02 am
E knows Obama’s gonna win. Can we fix it? Yes we can.
Comment by Paul D. Waite — Wednesday, May 7, 2008 @ 5:19 am
This is a tough one! I would try this: ‘We vote to select a group of people—to take care of things for us, so that we ourselves don’t have to individually.’ Or this: ‘Not everybody can be as skilled as Bob the builder, plus we have other things to do too. So we select one skillful Bob the builder—by voting—to help all of us.’
Comment by Chetan Kunte — Wednesday, May 7, 2008 @ 7:35 am
Gov ?
The biggest legal gangster in the world ?
Comment by Barry — Wednesday, May 7, 2008 @ 4:33 pm
I had a similar conversation with 4-year-old on Super Tuesday. I managed to get the “we’re choosing a leader” idea across, but completely failed to explain why the leader still isn’t done being chosen. Darn you, lengthy primary season!
Comment by Chris Radcliff — Wednesday, May 7, 2008 @ 4:47 pm
Government the ideal or government as it exists?
Ideal: the people who protect Daddy’s house.
Actual: the people who take Daddy’s money and use it to help give houses to people who shouldn’t have houses.
You might even be able to work Bob the Builder and Sam the Sub-prime Mortgage Lender in there.
Comment by Mark Jaquith — Wednesday, May 7, 2008 @ 5:17 pm
Mark Jaquith — please, tell us more about these “people who shouldn’t have houses”.
Comment by Finite — Wednesday, May 7, 2008 @ 9:29 pm
I think Mark is talking about people who aren’t in a financial position to own a house, and/or aren’t interested in the responsibility of paying for and maintaining a house. You know, renters. It’s not a crime… I was a renter for a long time. But I wasn’t stupid enough to think that a sub-prime mortgage with a balloon was a good idea, either. So I waited until I could afford it.
Suppose he could have said “people who can’t afford to own a house in the first place”
Is that better?
Comment by Infinite — Thursday, May 8, 2008 @ 12:53 am
Or in the UK you can say “the people who can’t afford to pay rent so the local government pays it for them, and they spend the money they aren’t spending on rent on the biggest cable TV package there is and a flash car, while I pay my own rent, can’t afford cable OR a car”
Comment by Andrew — Thursday, May 8, 2008 @ 8:31 am
I’m so glad that you didn’t go the “who’s in charge of Mommy and Daddy” route. I would have gone with police but that’s only because my girls are fascinated by policemen (and women, especially the policewomen).
Comment by Bill Brown — Thursday, May 8, 2008 @ 2:28 pm
Right. If you can’t afford a house, barring the charity of others, you shouldn’t have a house. Was merely a commentary on how the poor financial decisions of such people were (and will continue to be) subsidized by tax dollars and manufactured inflation, spreading the burden of their stupidity to everyone else.
Comment by Mark Jaquith — Thursday, May 8, 2008 @ 4:22 pm
Pretty awesome! I have to remember this :-) Very cool that you try to explain instead to telling your kid he/she (?) is too young. I think treating them like that is doing them good. Never try to avoid an explanation, even if you have no clue as to how to start.
Comment by Itkovian — Friday, May 9, 2008 @ 3:34 am
I’ve always explained it that there are people who work for all of us to keep basic things running. Roads are a good example — I live in Chicago so I also use the trains….
Comment by dbt — Saturday, May 10, 2008 @ 10:02 am