Attention every parent with a kid 18 and older: You have a job and if you fuck it up we will further descend into the desolate wasteland we are currently inhabiting. If you love decency, life, freedom, or puppies, you must harangue, bribe, harass and manipulate your offspring into voting on Tuesday.
This is your one job. Other than voting yourself. This is your second job.
I’m assuming your kid is already registered. Obviously.
This isn’t the time for grand principles of “letting kids be themselves” or “learn their own lessons” or “enjoy their youth.” FUCK ALL THAT. This is the time for gathering up the barely grown and bullying them into the voting booth.
It may not be easy. I didn’t vote until I was in my mid-20s. I know, I should die. But Clinton was President and I didn’t think blowjobs were such a big deal (I realize it’s more complex than that but please lower your standards for 19-year-old me), and the greatest human rights violation I witnessed was bars doing last call at 1:15am instead of 1:55am.
I was pretty much useless, and being useless is adorable (it’s not), but I believe that very head-in-sand-privileged-apathy is largely what got us into this festering cavern of bullshit.
Don’t worry, though. I’ve got you. We can make these fuckers vote. Here’s a list of 13 surefire methods.
- If they’re still in school, take them out on Tuesday. Fuck school. People in power right now want to arm schoolteachers and Head School Woman thinks black bears are a threat to schoolchildren but not the AR-15s shooting them up so seriously WTF matters here? Fuck tests. Fuck worksheets. Vote.
- Offer to buy them a burrito. Burritos are powerful things. If that doesn’t work, tell them you’ll buy their groceries for a month. And if you can’t afford that shit, buy them 80 Top Ramen, which is like food for a month, I think, when you’re 20.
- Remind them that this guy is making choices for how the nation is run. Just literally show them this picture and let them decide.
- Also recap Ted Cruz.
- Remind them that there’s a large conglomerate of humans – aka old white dudes with sour mouths and vacant eyes – who wants to whittle away Roe v Wade until we won’t have safe access to abortion. What’s that? You don’t like hearing about your kid having sex? CLUTCH YOUR FUCKIN PEARLS AND DEAL WITH IT.
- Straight pay them. Just write a fuckin check in exchange for that voting receipt. Who cares about your money? Money will be useless when we all fall into the ocean because of climate change.
- Lie, and hope you don’t get caught: Tell them the government wants to shut down Snapchat & Instagram after cancelling Beyonce, Drake, and Kendrik Lamar. Do kids even listen to that? Where am I. Whatever. Tell them the GOP wants to destroy everything they love.
- Show them your student loan bill. Blow that shit up, make it into a duvet cover, and stick in on their bed.
- Read to them how healthcare works in sane nations and how the average American lifespan is decreasing annually and the years we do live are less happy than in other countries. ASK YOUR CHILD IF SHE LIKES HAPPINESS AND BEING ALIVE GODDAMNIT MOTHERFUCKERS FUCKING VOTE.
- Threaten to boycott them over the holidays. That’s right. No Aunt June pumpkin pie. No grandpa’s turkey. NOT ONE HOLIDAY GIFT UNTIL YOU VOTE, ASSHOLE. If your kid hates family holidays, maybe avoid this one. Also maybe don’t call your kid “asshole.”
- The weed angle, people, the weed angle (legalization, not so much D.A.R.E.).
- Buy them a car or small boat or just promise to do so after you see the midterm and 2020 voting receipt.
- Remind them that the torch-bearing neo-Nazis are definitely voting, and those pieces of dog shit are implicitly, (increasingly explicitly), supported by our pussy-grabbing, constantly lying president, and the GOP in power is a sad gaggle of spineless sycophants, and the voter suppression and gerrymandering is so extreme and favoring the GOP so significantly that the only fucking chance we have to survive catastrophic dumpster fire fizzled-out democracy is to turn out in MOTHERFUCKING DROVES TO VOTE, so yes, kid, I get your apathy, and I remember being young enough to see apathy as an option, but that ship has sailed, and the entire goddamn nation is relying on you to save it so fuck your plans on November 6 and by the way here’s a burrito.
Sherry
Thursday, 1 November, 2018 at 19:51Yeah, I didn’t used to vote in my 20s. I voted once when I was 19 for a bunch of really stupid promises made by a lying sack of shit (we call them “conservatives here in Canada). After he won, did what he promised, aaaaand then made everything twice as bad as it had been, I decided not to vote anymore.
I wish my parents had talked to me more about politics. Not just the general promises, but the actual values of each party.
I sure as hell vote now. And I talk to my kids ALL the time about what I value and what I stand for, and why I vote the way I do. I’m not saying I always agree with our elected officials. But at least I’m not horrified by their complete and utter lack of humanity… Yet. Like herpes, your president’s vile crusty rash is spreading. I am scared for Canada, too. OK, the world.
Kristen
Thursday, 1 November, 2018 at 20:25Love this! I asked my 16 year old son the other day if he was interested in voting (because I heard gen z wasn’t interested) and he said “eh”…….I don’t know if he was just messing with me but I will be dragging him to the polls in 2020!
MaryEl
Friday, 2 November, 2018 at 4:12Voting is hard. We researched the items on the ballot, looked at the brochure published by the League of Women Voters, and last-minute texted a lawyer friend of mine for info on “shall ——— be retained as judge on nth Circuit?” (I know I’m privileged that I have lawyer friends!)
And my 19-year-old and I went down to early voting and he voted for the first time! I was more excited than he, but he did it!
This is Florida… a big one is a constitutional amendment which would automatically restore the right to vote to former prisoners who have completed their sentence. Just treat humans like humans… I so much hope that one passes.
Rachel
Friday, 2 November, 2018 at 4:59Hell yeah!! My 20 year old daughter and I are going together to the polls! Of course she’s received a completely unbiased summary of the candidates and will be allowed to make up her own mind on whom to vote for….lol, NOT! 😀 She’s voting how I told her to because she doesn’t care but knows she should and I care for both of us 😉
Barb
Friday, 2 November, 2018 at 5:01I’ve been a registered Republican from the first moment I was able to vote ( many years ago)…. until 2016, when it became embarrassing to even admit that I was. One is never too old to change, so I did. I’ll be voting “Blue” all the way now. And I’m sure as hell bucking the system (don’t much care) because I’m surrounded by a “red sea” of idiots!
Stacey
Friday, 2 November, 2018 at 9:18This made me feel better today. My kids are still too young BUT I have taken them to vote with me in EVERY SINGLE election since they were born. I want it imprinted into their brains! After we voted early, we went to a rally to support Beto that evening. Win win.
Corinne
Friday, 2 November, 2018 at 13:44I’m Canadian so, while I’d love to help, for a whole bunch of reasons – have you ever heard about how living next to you is like being a mouse sleeping beside an elephant? – I can’t. 🙁 I’ve always been a political nerd, so I could not wait to cast my first ballot. I’ve been eligible to vote in 23 elections, and only missed one because I got caught in a traffic jam and couldn’t convince the Poll Clerk to extend poll hours by 5 minutes so I could vote. It was pretty traumatic. Anyway, I think that “Goddamnit motherfuckers fucking vote” is the best call to action ever, and it is now my election cycle mantra. Please, for the love of all that is good and beautiful, get your family and friends out to vote. The world needs the US to get it right this time.
Katie
Friday, 2 November, 2018 at 16:53YES!! Voting is my soapbox topic. I honestly think that if people don’t show up to vote someone is going to suggest that maybe the masses are too dumb for democracy and start limiting who can vote (accusations of voter list purging aside, but I’m not too up on that topic as it appears to be less of an issue in Canada – I hope?). I applause all who vote, (even though they may vote for the wrong people 😉
Kim
Saturday, 3 November, 2018 at 13:58I live in Australia… anyone heard of the frightening fucknuts running this place lead by Morrison?
Children locked up in detention indefinitely (5 years so far)
announcing casually he’s willing to look into moving the embassy in Israel now that Trump has
refuses to remove schools’ ‘right’ to discriminate against LGBTQ+ students,
ripped 17 billion dollars out of public schools but caved to lobby groups from elite private and catholic schools and handed them an unresearched sum of 4 billion that was big enough to shut them up (God knows they need another pool)
have officially rebranding coal power as ‘fair dinkum power’ which he publically stated when questioned what the hell was that that it was what we needed when the bloody sun and wind stopped. But refuting tto call it coal even though he brought a lump of coal into parliament to mock those who thought coal was going to kill us.. he still thinks we’re dumb and he’s popular
Every democratically elected leader of this country since 2007 has been removed by party politics and we’ve had 7 prime ministers since January 2007
The lack of convictions and honour in the 2 main parties has seen an alarming rise in independent candidates and minor parties… why do all independents seem to be appalling right wing pricks who want the parliament to have on record that ‘it is ok to be white’? (this motion only failed to pass the Senate by 3 votes after a red headed neo nazi called Pauline Hanson introduced it and our government supported it. The Greens and opposition were the only ones vocal against it)
Yet I have hope. We have compulsory voting and I believe that there has been enough turmoil and shit happening in our name that enough voters really bloody care about it and the parties are going to have to listen.
Hopefully we’re heading to an 8th prime minister next May, and hopefully they will be in power long enough to restore faith and stability and humanity to our leadership.
Lucie Mewes
Saturday, 3 November, 2018 at 12:12I voted. My Millenial Kids votes Progressive. I’m so proud. And now I’m gonna make more calls and do the Vote.org app thing. Change.
Lorain
Saturday, 3 November, 2018 at 14:25I am so freaking lucky to have grown ass kids who take voting seriously! Who am I kidding? We raised them this way, and they chose to marry people who are similarly minded. My DIL and son register people to vote. My daughter and SIL work on political campaigns. Our daughter even went canvassing this year, and she definitely is reticent to talk with strangers. She said, “Mom, it does no good for me to talk about politics with people who agree with me.” Wow! Talk about pride.
They know I cast my first vote in a primary, and that I voted for Shirley Chisholm. She is still one of my heroes, a badass black feminist who saw no reason why she shouldn’t run though she had no support from her male cohorts. I’m deeply saddened that you younger women are having to fight some of the battles that we older feminists thought we had already won. It breaks my heart to see that progress made more recently on other issues (LGBT rights, voting rights, citizenship, immigration, etc.) is being turned backwards.
I’m still here, I’m still progressive, and I voted early!
Lisa Landon
Sunday, 4 November, 2018 at 9:43So thankful ???? to be Canadian ????????
No.3, tho ????
Best of luck and love to you folks. ♥️
Madelief Becherer
Monday, 5 November, 2018 at 7:54Yes! If your kids can’t vote yet, bring them when you vote. Make it the thing you do. Normalize it, make it an expectation, not an option!
Corey
Saturday, 10 November, 2018 at 11:59Took my kid to the polls and then bought her a cake!
FedUpMom
Monday, 26 November, 2018 at 7:42I love you. Thank you for the motivational boost today.
Robert Hawkins
Monday, 26 November, 2018 at 20:18The most important thing you can say to parents is take your kids to the polling place the same way you would take them to church and talk about it on the way, about how you decide how to vote
Catherine R. Valerio
Thursday, 29 November, 2018 at 20:32Thanks for the motivation, all kids should cast their votes and take voting seriously.