Your weekend was incomplete if you didn't catch Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry's brilliant cameo at The American Scene arguing persuasively for the complete abolition of minimum voting age requirements. The argument works as a pincers, first by lowering resistance to the thought of toddlers lining up to fill out ballots they can't comprehend --- children are much more perspicuous than adults like to give them credit for --- and then shutting the door by pointing out the execrable qualifications and performance of adults as voters.

Our New Overlords: Aren't they adorable? Gobry places his emphasis on the first point. It's worth taking some time to flesh out the second. The standard objection to the idea of doing away with voting age requirements is that before a certain stage in development, people have neither the experience nor the basic mental tools to make informed decisions in the voting booth. Drawing the line at 18 years may be arbitrary, but the line needs to be drawn somewhere. So the thought goes.

But to state the standard objection to child-voting is to refute it. The overwhelming majority of adults have neither the experience nor the basic mental tools to make informed decisions in the voting booth. In his classic study "The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics," Philip Converse found that for 90 percent of the public, voting is simply an act of tribal affiliation, having nothing to do with competing political ideologies, less still with inferring voting preferences from facts, logic, and background political beliefs. (The Converse study is from the 50s, but subsequent studies have simply reinforced his findings.) In other words, if you're like 98 percent of the public, and you buy the standard objection to letting kids vote, you ought to believe you shouldn't have the right to vote either.

Besides all that, if you're ahead of the curve, you already know that voting is a sucker's game in the first place. If you were truly rational, you'd never do it. So it makes no sense to insist that voters be able to make rational, informed decisions, because no matter what you're capable of, voting is neither rational nor informed --- and irrational, uninformed people of all ages will tend to do equally well at it. (So would trained chimps.)

Still unconvinced? Then let me ratchet up the case rhetorically. Minimum voting age requirements are very much like Communism, and suffer from many similar fatal blind spots. The voting decisions an electorate makes today quite obviously not only affect today's voters, but also those of the future. By restricting the franchise to those above a certain age, we effectively socialize the preferences of everyone below that age, leaving it up to a cadre of elders to make what we hope will be enlightened decisions on behalf of everyone else. But of course, those elders don't make enlightened decisions. They make selfish, short-sighted, myopic decisions: In concrete terms, pensioners and boomers, thinking of themselves first, second, and third, are leaving as their lasting contribution to this country mind-boggling generational deficits, which Niall Ferguson and Lawrence Kotlikoff estimate at $45 trillion, or four and half times the size of the entire US economy.

Will younger voters behave any more altruistically? Of course not. If you're the average American, anyone my age who has taken a look at these figures has nothing but bottomless resentment for the debt you're leaving us (or at least should); but rest assured, we'll have our revenge. In the meantime, there's nothing to fear from abolishing the voting age: Infants (and dogs) couldn't squander what has been risibly called "our most precious freedom" any worse than most of the people who will read this already have.

Related: Babies might love Barack Obama even more than Jewcy does. Check out this hard-hitting report from CNN, below:

Girls can be robots too: Whither the fembots of yesteryear?My son has reached the dread age where the genders start to separate at school, and he’s not happy. While he likes nominally traditional boy things, such as baseball and basketball and watching cartoon explosions, he also enjoys the company of girls. But the girls at his school mostly play sugar-and-spicy games like princess or Holly Hobbie (which, amazingly, still exists), while the boys run around and pretend to be robots. Given a choice, my son, who’s repeatedly declared that princesses are for losers, would always rather be a robot. But given an additional choice, he’d want the girls to be robots and aliens too. Somewhere in the universe, and certainly in his mind, there are tough female robot and alien role models, but they never show up on the playground. Sadly, the era of pre-school egalitarianism seems to be ending fast.

In my vast experience as an alternative-themed parenting guru, I’ve heard from a lot of parents concerned that our culture is feeding gender stereotypes to their children, almost from birth. They worry about the Disney Princess marketing juggernaut and worry more seriously about Bratz culture, with its makeover parties for six-year-olds and dolls who live only to shop, gossip, and show off their flat bellies. They seem less bothered by the culture surrounding their boys, who, as usual, are playing with trucks and beating one another with sticks, but there’s still concern. An ad for Tonka trucks says “Boys: They’re just built different." This goes along beautifully with an ad for a hideous product called “Rose Petal Cottage,” which features a little girl doing the wash and making cookies accompanied by the lyrics "I love when my laundry gets so clean/ Taking care of my home is a dream, dream, dream!" It would be foolish to completely deny gender differences, but is it really smart to propagandize our children into Stanley and Stella Kowalski? Man as brute and woman as precious subservient flower is so last century.

We’ve all encountered the tomboy who can execute a perfect hook slide and the little guy who enjoys wearing mommy’s pantyhose. We also know the girl who wears princess dresses to school or the boy whose only mission in life appears to be pile-driving other children into the ground. But the rest of our kids, the ones whose tastes and behaviors don’t entirely seem bound by their chromosomal makeup, can occupy something I call the “nerd middle.” Therein lies the solution to gender stereotyping.

Spongebob's friend Sandy: One tough squirrel Beyond the Transformers and Hannah Montana is a rich menu of dorky gender-neutral characters that command fan fealty, like all corporate entertainment products must. But they also confound traditional notions of what boys and girls should be, and how they should behave. The major female character on Spongebob Squarepants is an ass-kicking karate squirrel from Texas, while the show’s titular hero breaks out into show tunes unbidden, can’t drive a lick, and cares for his pet snail like a little girl would her kitty.

The Star Wars movies have Princess Leia (if not much else) to balance out the portentous testosterone. The lead children in the Narnia saga and The Golden Compass are smart, capable, brave—and girls. Dora The Explorer doesn’t seem interested in makeup and boys, and her cousin Diego only has eyes for baby animals. The Backyardigans, a show that’s previously received a whuppin’ in this space, also passes the nerd middle test. Crappy music aside, The Backyardigans teaches girls that they can be pirates, spies, Vikings, or cowboys. Just as importantly, they teach boys that girls can be those things.

Even superheroes, the traditional rulers of the fortress of male dorkitude, can and should be presented to girls in the nerd middle. In the Justice League: Unlimited cartoon series, which many of my son’s friends watch, Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Hawkgirl, Black Canary, The Huntress, and several other heroines are presented as the equals, and often the betters, of their male hero counterparts. Kim Possible vaults into action on the Disney Channel, and, while dropping this reference makes me feel old, let us never forget the lessons of The Powerpuff Girls, a show whose central joke revolved around the fact that little girls named Blossom and Buttercup kicked ass.

Golden Compass-Kicker: Lyra Belacqua makes a great role model So the right messages are out there. Why, then, in a world where there’s always a Pink Ranger, has the concept of girl power been so marginalized? Why does it seem radical to suggest that it could be otherwise? For every parent who grumbles about the evils of the Rose Petal Cottage on Feministing, there are a hundred who wouldn’t think twice before taking their girls to the mall to buy Barbie’s Dream Beach House. Even Lisa Simpson, a gender-neutral girl hero if ever one existed, worships her Malibu Stacy dolls. It’s as though we’re willfully ignoring the gender-mixing messages of the media our children consume. Either that, or we never really absorbed the messages in the first place.

From age five on, boys play t-ball while girls take ballet. Coed sleepovers, which really should be acceptable up until age 10, rarely even get off the ground. My wife and I, like good self-righteous urban liberals, try to counteract this as much as possible. Our son plays flag football, but he also takes gymnastics. He likes to peg ants in the backyard with a squirt gun, but he goes to cooking class on Monday evenings. We wrestle in the backyard, and then sometimes on rainy days I take him to kiddie yoga. When he goes over to his girl cousin’s house, they have a gender-free good time: shooting hoops, playing “zoo,” watching Electric Company videos, and staging elaborate High School Musical dance parties. Well, the last activity is pretty girly, but it is her house. Sometimes you must make concessions.

American life, on the surface, has never been more gender-neutral than it is now. Women go to war, and men make dinner. Men win Dancing With The Stars, and there are female American Gladiators. Both genders, apparently, are capable of playing the role of Bob Dylan. The only real gender-exclusive things in the world are the siring of children and childbirth, though recent current events have even called that exclusivity into question. Yet the Bratz persist, and Joe Francis, the pig behind Girls Gone Wild, continues to make millions even as he stews in jail. It’s up to us parents to encourage the gender-neutral side of our culture, and to try and persuade our children that the battle of the sexes need not continue along the same path.

Elijah’s best friend (or second-best, depending on the week) is a cute, smart little girl named Ariel. They’re weird in the exact same way, and it’s obvious that they get each other. Friends like that are rare at any age. Their favorite activity is to play Star Wars, and Ariel always gets to be Luke Skywalker. The fact that a girl is playing a male lead barely even occurs to them.

Fancy Shmancy: a Martha Stewart Passover table setting, replete with Tiffany-blue Haggadah. Excuuuuse me.A haggadah can make or break your seder. Don't believe me? Read the standard Maxwell House Haggadah, and I promise you'll be bored out of your mind. The good news is, there are alternatives out there. Here are five tips to help you choose one that will keep you awake and asking deep questions long into the night.

1. Know Your Audience: Is your seder going to have countless kids? Numerous boomers? A gaggle of teenagers? Ten vegetarians? Several seniors? Keep this in mind when you’re selecting a haggadah. If you're going kid-friendly, you definitely want something with great pictures, and maybe even activities to keep everyone occupied. If there are mostly seniors at your seder, consider choosing something that emphasizes history, or that’s more academic.
2. Check Out the Illustrations: A haggadah with great text but weird illustrations is kind of a drag to use (the Feast of Freedom, for instance). Often the illustrations are a commentary in their own right, so when you’re rifling through haggadahs in the store, check out the pictures: It's a good way of predicting if the interpretation is going to speak to you.
3. Keep Length in Mind: If you’re looking to be in bed by 10:30, you probably don’t want seventy pages of reading during the Magid section. Of course, you can pick and choose what you’ll read, but you don’t want your guests to be overwhelmed. On the other hand, if you like epic seders, then look for a haggadah that’s got plenty of commentary on every page.
4. Look For Themes: If you’re going to be hosting a crew of vegetarians, mostly women, people of many faiths, or tons of tree-huggers, don’t be afraid to check out haggadahs geared specifically to your guest list. Yesterday we told you about ways to make your whole seder themed, but it really all starts with a haggadah.
5. Feel Free to Mix and Match: There’s no rule that says you have to go around the table taking turns reading paragraphs from the same book. If you can’t decide on one haggadah for everyone to use, get an assortment and let people choose the one they like best. You can also copy specific pages you like from different haggadahs (if you’re on a budget, try your local library, where you can check out haggadahs for free) and assemble your own haggadah made up of different parts from different books.

Related: 5 Alternative Seders

 

The Legacy Project is an organization devoted to creating bonds between the generations. They have educational hands-on programming for everyone from seven-year-old Mickey to eighty-seven-year-old Max. This year they sponsored a contest called the Listen to a Life Essay Contest, where students ages 8-18 interviewed a grandparent or “grandfriend” 50 years or older about their life experiences and then submitted a 300-word essay.

Eleanor Cawthon, 13, was the national Grand Prize winner, and she got a Lenovo ThinkCentre computer and a $500 Books Are Fun gift certificate. Cawthon is a grade 8 student at Rowland Hall-St. Mark's Middle School in Salt Lake City, Utah. She interviewed Reed Hart, 69, who's part of the Tenth East Senior Center. Hart shared his experiences in the Navy serving in Korea. "When I asked Mr. Hart what he would like to leave the world's young people, he said a recording of the interview. My essay is his wish fulfilled," says Cawthon.

Twenty runners-up also got $200 Books Are Fun gift certificates. You can read all of their essays and see pictures at the winners page of the website. And you can start gearing your kids up for this coming year’s competition, which starts on Grandparents’ Day, September 9th.

Also available on the Legacy website, some amazing gift ideas for graduates.

Remember when you were in high school and you had huge screaming matches with your parents for not letting you go to a Dropkick Murphys concert? And when they wouldn’t back down you stomped up to your room and slammed the door while screaming, “It’s not FAIR! I didn’t ASK to be born!” Remember that?

Well, today’s news has some insight on kids who were born into awkward and/or unpleasant situations. In fact, our own Laurel Snyder is quoted in an article about choices that kids from intermarried families have to make. There’s a lot of discussion of families where some kids chose Judaism and some didn’t. And there’s the inevitable ‘do I go to church with my dad if I’m Jewish?’ debate. All of which makes it clear that while it may not be fair, it’s hardly impossible to negotiate.
A Lebensborn Birth house: Being Born Just Sucks
(Dear Every Rabbi Who Ever Taught Me in High School, Guess what? It turns out intermarriage isn’t the end of the world! You can move on with your lives! I know, I’m totally psyched. Love, Tamar)

If you think intermarriage is problematic you’re going to just love this article from the Times about children who were conceived under a Nazi plan to try to make lots of pretty Aryan looking babies. “They were conceived because of the desire of invading Nazi troops to create an Aryan master race to rule the world — and now they are demanding compensation because of the stigma and discrimination it has caused them.” Apparently, these next gen Nazis (who are mainly Norwegian) were part of a plan cooked up by Heinrich Himmler called Lebensborn, which means Fountain of Life. Many of the kids (who are now, of course, well into their seventies) were subject to discrimination and harassment, and some were “deprived of their original names and identity.” I don’t actually understand what that means—they weren’t told their parentage and background or were lied to about it?—but it certainly sounds like it sucks. The article mentions a few specific cases of these children being called Nazis and then being cruelly punished for their parentage.

Norwegian courts are holding hearings now to decide whether the kids have a case and aren’t expected to make a decision for months.

In a way this is a chilling reminder of how completely insane the Nazis were (and how exactly was this plan implemented? Did German soldiers get postcards that said ‘For A Good Time Call Marta at 867-5309’?) but there’s a lot of serious questions to be asked about lessons we clearly haven’t learned from the Holocaust. Like, say, tolerance. I mean, it takes a certain amount of insanity to call babies Nazis. We like to hear that everything worked out fine, and that the good guys won and the Nazis were killed, but in reality we left things pretty messy. Which is way less fair than not being allowed to go to a Dropkick Murphys show (although I maintain that is still uncalled for).

Itche Kadoozy: Better than BarneyBuried in Brooklyn, just a few streets over from Avenue Q, there are some other puppets you might want to check out. Itche Kadoozy and friends!

The Forward has a piece about the Jewish puppetry phenomenon this week, and since I’ve not seen the show, I’ll leave it to better journalists to give you the scoop. But I couldn’t resist this plug. It just sounds so hilarious!

In an interview with the Forward, Taub said he created Itche — the show’s rabbi and one of its main characters — by accident, during his time as a counselor at a Hasidic summer camp. Disappointed by the way his first hand-sewn puppet turned out, he purchased a book on puppet making and re-created “Itche” (who, though only 4 in puppet years, is presented as a 60-ish rabbi on the show and boasts a long gray beard, a black yarmulke and a raspy voice).

When Taub shared his invention with Jonathan Goorvich, his childhood friend, Goorvich was “blown away.” Taub then taught him puppet making, and Goorvich created a puppet that reflected himself: casual college student with open plaid shirt, baseball cap and dark glasses. After the two friends improvised and taped these two puppets together, Jono was born: the show’s second main character, a secular Jew who lives in the rabbi’s basement. The characters befriend each other, and together they experience wacky adventures and mishaps with esoteric and practical lessons to be learned.

Any wacky hypercolor puppets inspired equally by Jim Henson and the Lubavitcher Rebbe have GOT to be worth a journey to Brooklyn, right?

C’mon! One of you has to be willing to go and scout this out for me, report back. Any takers? I’ll (personally) buy your ticket!

You can check it out online too!

Remember these guys from Hebrew school?Often, when I want to learn about a subject, I go to the library, or a website, or I rent a documentary... and I find that there's already so much I DON'T know that I'm lost in the introduction.  Maybe you're so brilliant that this has never happened to you, but I doubt it.

And while Chaos Theory may be, by its very definition HARD, Jewish history, culture, and religious thinking should NOT be that hard.  So if you crack a "smart" book and find youself lost, you just need to dumb it down.  Which is where kiddie books (and movies too) can be helpful.

I want to offer that books intended for kids are often incredibly accesible, but surprisingly complete.  So you shouldn't be afraid to visit the children's section of the library, or the big evil bookstore.  Whether you want to learn about how to pray, bible stories, Jewish trivia, holidays... or whatever.

In fact, my very (smart and) gentile husband recently read a kiddie-book about Jewish history without any prompting  from me. If he can do it...

Although it doesn't explicitly mention intermarriage, #9 on the  NYTimes list of Questions Couples Should Ask Before Marrying  is "Have we reached a clear understanding of each other’s spiritual beliefs and needs, and have we discussed when and how our children will be exposed to religious/moral education?"  

Good thing too, because (unlike us intermarried types) although it's true that for many couples the decision of "which religion" is a foregone conclusion... even in families where everyone has the same background, religion can be a tricky issue.  Two newly marrieds from Jewish families don't always see eye to eye, and often fight over the level of religious observance in the home. Or things are fine until the kids arrive, and then one half of the couple assumes the burden of religious education and ritual and quietly resents the uninterested parent.   Which is only messier when you add in the complication of two faiths.

In any case, I'm acutely aware of this issue, after a weekend of working with people who should have asked themselves this question BEFORE the wedding, and are now on the verge of serious marital problems.  Often, the reason people don't ask the question... is simply that they're afraid the marriage can't handle it.  Which is a BAD reason to avoid conversation, and likely a bad marriage in the end. 

If you are in an intermarriage, or inter-dating, ask yourself whether you could handle raising Christian kids? 

 No? 

Now ask yourself whether your partner understands that if they agree to raise Jewish kids, and you die...

They have to raise Jewish kids on their own.