Jennifer and Ryan Russon of Coral Springs, Florida, are two such parents who believe they can train their children to represent how the world should be. They are raising their son Maxwell, age 8, and daughter Anna, age 6, to become staunch liberals and atheists. Their family refuses to shop at Walmart because its owners are, according to Ryan, "goose-stepping Nazis.
Both kids already understand that the minimum wage needs to be raised, Jennifer explains. In fact, my son had to pick a president to do a report on in his third-grade class and wrote an essay about how being able to afford food is a basic human rightthat this would be his first initiative were he POTUS.
Under her parents influence, Anna fell out of favor with her conservative kindergarten teacher when she announced that she would not eat Papa Johns pizza during a class pizza party because the companys CEO was reluctant to provide healthcare benefits to his employees.
We make sure the kids know that just because daddy may make more money than somebody else that does not mean he is a harder worker or made better choices, Jennifer explains. Certainly this is sometimes the case, but it is not always the case. Feeling empathy and seeing the bigger picture is a big part of being liberal and I think we do a good job of impressing this on our kids.
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