Vodka Yonic features a rotating cast of women, nonbinary and gender-diverse writers from around the world sharing stories that are alternately humorous, sobering, intellectual, erotic, religious or painfully personal. You never know what you’ll find in this column, but we hope this potent mix of stories encourages conversation.
I was a precocious 6-year-old in the fall of 1988 with a momentous task ahead of me: voting for the 41st president of the United States. One doesn’t complete a task of this magnitude without dedicated preparation, so between September and October, I was glued to the television as part of my extensive research. There I was, a little girl from rural Tennessee, having limited access to the “Big City” yet enthralled with the presidential election of 1988.
My self-imposed civic duty was to watch the presidential debates and assist my fellow Americans with the weighted decision of electing our 41st president. (For those who aren’t caught up on streaming America: The Series, this is your chance to binge a few more episodes and then return to the story.) Everyone else knows George H.W. Bush won the election, and I subsequently experienced my first political defeat.
More than 36 years later, my love for politics and the hunt for justice still ring as loudly as my ancestors’ cry for freedom. All citizens, regardless of age, should hold the right to make their voices heard in some form.
Holding firm to that belief, Election Day 2022 sparked an idea that once again felt like a sign to uphold my civic duty. At that time, my husband Anthony and I had 3-year-old twin girls. I, being a political enthusiast, voted during the early voting period. So when Anthony headed to the polls on Election Day, I asked him to snag two additional “I Voted” stickers. He returned home with the stickers, and I laid out the plan. The girls would vote for a position more important than POTUS: Favorite Parent. I used their walk-in closet as the polling location and created two voter registration cards.
To get the girls more involved and create an experience as true to life as possible, we put two other items on the ballot: Doughnut Friday and Amendment 2022 (“Should Daddy buy a new car?”). Mommy won Favorite Parent, Doughnut Friday was approved, and the amendment passed. After Election Day, I continued to bask in the victory of winning Favorite Parent while ensuring the girls got doughnuts on Fridays and spearheading the charge for Daddy to buy a new car.
When the 2024 political season began, as the incumbent candidate, I wanted to connect with the voters on a deep emotional level quickly. I’ve studied enough political campaigns to know being an incumbent presents unique challenges due to heightened scrutiny and voter apathy.
I hired someone to film and edit my campaign video. I ran on “The Greatest Love of All” platform because, as Whitney Houston taught us, “Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.”
Once my video hit social media, Anthony vowed to have the marketing department at his job assist him in creating a campaign video that would rival anything produced in Obama’s “Yes We Can” era. I threatened to expose him for using corporate America, and he decided to go another route.
We hit the campaign trail hard by listening to our constituents and making promises to improve their lives. We made a voter registration form for the girls to fill out and gave them voter registration cards.
Although our Favorite Parent election is the type of hijinks you’d expect from a 1990s TGIF sitcom, we’d be remiss not to use this time to teach the girls the importance of registering to vote and identifying the privilege we hold in casting our vote, especially since their ancestors were girls and boys of the rural South who never had the privilege bestowed upon them.
Just like many of you, our daughters cast their vote on Nov. 5, 2024. Before voting started, we had time to address our constituents and plead our case. After the speeches, it was time to vote. Each girl had to present her identification to a poll worker and then head to the booth to cast her vote. On the ballot were Favorite Parent, Pizza Friday and Amendment 2024 (Mommy and Daddy must take the girls on a trip at least once a quarter).
The girls filled out their ballots, placed them in the scanner and received their coveted “I Voted” stickers. Mommy won Favorite Parent, Pizza Friday was approved, and Amendment 2024 passed with flying colors.
In the fall of 1988, 6-year-old Sheena headed to the polls to cast her imaginary vote for Michael Dukakis. Thirty-six years later, I took my love for politics and the hunt for justice and turned it into an avenue for my 5-year-olds to ring their bells and raise their voices loudly and proudly.
