Lindsey Cormack: How to Raise a Citizen

Kelly talks with Lindsey Cormack, a tenured professor of Political Science at Stevens Institute of Technology about her latest book “How to Raise a Citizen (And Why It’s Up to You to Do It).”

 

I grew up in a big family that talked about politics on a regular basis at the dinner table.

“You grew up in a really lucky sort of setting that most people don’t find themselves in. I sort of know this in two ways. One is experientially: I get to see hundreds of new adults every year as a political science professor. So, I get to see them right when they’re eligible to vote. And the second is that we have decent nationwide studies on this, where only about 25% of our 18- to 24-year-olds report having intentional conversations around politics with their parents. That doesn’t mean they don’t like to hear it. But it’s not something that is guided and says, ‘We’re going to sit down and talk about that.’ That’s not the norm.” 

 

I think for many parents, it’s also a fear of not feeling competent in discussing what is often a complex topic. 

“Our kids don’t need us to be government trivia experts or have the answers to everything, and neither do any conversation partners that we have. They need us to be willing to listen, willing to learn and willing to contribute. And so, we just have to get over the idea that because we don’t know everything, we have nothing to say, that’s just not true, or we have nothing to learn, that’s also not true. We’re always learning.” 

 

And it’s also true for kids. It’s not that they don’t care about politics, they might just not have the information. 

“That’s like one of the weirdest myths that people hold. They’re like, ‘oh, you know, they just don’t care about politics.’ There’s nationwide studies that ask kids about this, and it’s not really that they don’t care; It’s that they don’t know how to do things. I think the study that I have in the book talks about how 78% of the kids are actually interested in current events and what’s going on in politics. But that doesn’t get translated into things like voter registration and voter turnout, because there’s a disjuncture from being interested and knowing how to do things. And that’s the gap that I think we all wish schools could fill. But they can’t. And so that’s why I ended up writing a parenting book, because I think parents have to do that work.”