BoomerGirl Diary

A few years ago, my eldest child made an important announcement.

“Mom, Dad, I think I’ll be joining the other political party.”

Now, in some houses, in some decades, this might not be a story.

But this is 2006.

And in our house, the mother has been known to teach values along particular party lines. The father is a political scientist who taught his young children first, how to play baseball, second, how to watch “Meet the Press,” and third, how to articulate the “correct” view on war, abortion and the presidency.

Suddenly, we had counter arguments and a bit of tension at the dinner table.

“Bill Clinton and his Monica shenanigans should have gotten him thrown out of office!” the one says.

“Bill Clinton’s sex life is nothing compared to George Bush’s lies!” says the other.

This certainly is not the only time in U.S. history that family division has been reported along political lines. Consider Archie Bunker and his son-in-law in the 1970s TV hit “All in the Family.” Then there was the 1980s TV sitcom “Family Ties,” about a liberal couple and their ultra-conservative son, played by Michael J. Fox.

But these are the days, perhaps more than ever, of intense national polarization, when everybody’s bunched up along two extremes, when you’re either “for” or “against” and not much in between, when one issue can determine party affiliation and every vote counts, including those of the people closest to you.

My friend Lynne is a steadfast conservative who once worked for a Christian-based anti-abortion hotline. She and her husband were blind-sided when three of their five children showed up liberal.

“My children grew up wearing their own pro-life T shirts and seemed very much to agree with my husband and me on that issue,” says Lynne. “Now when they vote for people who are pro-choice, it breaks my heart because I truly believe that babies are being sacrificed for the inconvenience they would cause someone else.”

There’s my neighbor Lisa, whose parents are leaders in the local Democratic Party. During the 2004 presidential campaign, Lisa spent hundreds of hours herself making cold calls, planting yard signs and holding placards in the rain for Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry.

Her husband of 17 years and a Marine during the Vietnam War, meanwhile, supported the GOP candidate. Neither allowed the other to put a political sign in the yard.

“He sees war as a viable method for solving conflicts,” says Lisa. “I see it as a measure of absolute last resort — and the invention of men lacking in real courage and creativity. He doesn’t believe the government can do as much as the individual, while I believe there are some things only the government can do.”

It can get pretty intense inside the living rooms of the divided home, particularly during important public policy debates and presidential elections, particularly in our state of Ohio, where the 2004 presidential election came down to counting the votes of friends and neighbors in our very back yards.

But everybody manages to come together at the end of the day.

My husband and I might have been shocked at first by our son’s announcement. He is now 18, voting age and a bit more centrist.

But we were not interested in filibustering over the mashed potatoes. This was our son. As time went on, we began to listen, instead of point-and-counterpointing.

As for Lisa, she still goes to bed every night with her husband, as far as I know. And Lynne and her husband find other things to talk about when their children visit.

“Like with so many issues regarding friends or family, you can agree to disagree,” Lynne says. “I don’t think either side will change. Each is convinced that they are right. So there’s really no point, and it’s nice to be able to get together and enjoy each other without bringing up controversy.”

I am not naive.

I know that agreeing to disagree doesn’t work in every house — especially the one on Capitol Hill.

Congress is not the Brady Bunch.

But wouldn’t it be nice if, instead of spending their energy on desperate hate commercials during this last week before the Nov. 7 General Election, our nation’s leaders called a family meeting?

Everybody would have to use “I” statements.

Kicking and biting would not be tolerated. Nor would pontificating.

Participants would be required to actually listen to each other.

Anybody who disobeyed the rules would be sent to time-out or to the laptop to write an essay about the importance of respecting the individual.

Nobody would be allowed to leave the room until common ground was found.

At the end, everyone — Trent Lott and Ted Kennedy, Barack Obama and George Bush — would hug.