politics on kids

I recently (after posting my lovely links on cool lefty kiddie wear) perused an article that was very critical of parents who chose to put their politics on their littles, literally speaking.   It seems some folks get bent all outta shape at the idea of parents pressing and advertising their belief systems on their kids' t-shirts. 

This is a contention that took me a bit by surprise.  The surprising thing being, we ALL make personal and political statements about ourselves as people and as parents on the bodies of our children  every day. Rockabilly parents dress their kids all rockabilly.  Punk parents dress their kids all punk.  There are some parents with kids sporting mohawks or green/blue/pink/whatever hair and I'm going to bet the farm those parents are the ones attending the right-wing fundamentalist church down the road.  The baby girls with pierced ears reflect their parents' beliefs about femininity or gender and/or various other cultural beliefs.  The kids who only ever wear khakis and sweater vests or conservative looking Laura Ashley dresses reflect their parents' world views. The parents who only dress their babies in very girly or very boy-y clothing reflect their own values, just as surely as the parents who choose to ignore stereotypically gendered clothing.  Golf nuts dressing their kids in golf shirts and soccer nuts dressing their kids in soccer gear and hockey nuts dressing their children in Oilers (erm, I mean hockey) jerseys all make statements about their parents' passions (because I'm pretty sure my kids didn't actually come out of the womb sayiing "Go Oiler Go!"  and dressed in blue and orange.  That would be their mommy's and their papa's values reflected right there).  Parents who dress their daughters in sexy bikinis (which I personally find all kinds of revolting) and their sons in shirts that say "future pimp" (and yes, you can actually buy this shirt for your children!) reflect their own (high questionnable, in my not nearly humble opinion) morals.  So no matter what our beliefs are, our children reflect them until they are old enough to make choices about their own appearence preferences and political preferences.   So making a big deal of babies sportin' Obama onesies seems to me to be a bit, well, disingenuous. 

I personally would love to see the kids sportin' a "I'm trusting the man with the moustache" tees with a photo of Jack Layton (and by the by, if any of Jack's ad team is perchance reading this, I think a little humour would go a long way in distinguishing him from his robotic middle and right wing counterparts!). Or, "Go Green Go" with a photo of Elizabeth Whatshernose from the Green Party (because those are the political direction this household rolls, in case you hadn't already surmised).  And as you already know from my previous shopping links and the fact that I made our entire family be-rainbowed shirts for Pride - I'm all for kiddie "billboarding". 

All within reason, naturally.  Do I think people should be allowed to send their kids to school with "White Pride" shirts?  Um, no.   (I personally think people should get beat up for wearing "White Pride" shirts, but that's just me.)   Do I think it's appropriate for kids to be wearing "Hooters" shirts?  Give me a freaking break, people.

I guess what I'm basically saying is this - if it agrees with my own lefty politics, kids should be allowed to wear it.  Naw - I'm just kidding!  If people want to send their kids off to the playground with a shirt that says "My Daddy Voted for Stephen Harper", have at 'er.  (Just be forewarned that  probably isn't going to make them the coolest kid on the monkey bars).

Seriously though- if it's relatively age appropriate and not hateful - I don't see what the problem is with parental values being overtly reflected on a cute little onesie, given that they are covertly reflected in so, so many other ways.