Most, if not all, children are intimately aware of how little weight their words carry in the eyes of adults. At the least, they realize that the limited few of their words that carry weight are those which pertain to matters of limited importance. Arts and Crafts? Sure. Politics? Never.
Young people are at once bemoaned for failing to vote or be civically engaged and shouted down when they reach out to claim their voice. Children, even older teenagers, who choose to speak out publicly are ridiculed as pawns of political special interests or reflections of their parents' ideology rather than their own, The underlying sentiment is clear: children cannot possibly be sophisticated enough, educated enough, prepared enough to have any sort of informed, independent opinion. This could not be farther from the truth.
It's true, we are under-educated in civics— but so are you. Most adults don't carry an extensive education in law or civics or policy. Expecting children to be policy experts is preposterous when so few policy experts of any age exist.
Furthermore, American democracy does not require its populace to be policy experts. The United States is a republic. The people do not lead this nation, we vote for and speak to those who do. How can we function if our emerging citizens are not taken seriously by our representatives, by our more established populace? We cannot. If our children are shouted down before they have even had the chance to cast a ballot, they lose this precious sense of political efficacy, of their own ability to affect real change in the world and apathy flourishes.
Young people who make the choice to speak out go out on a limb and they do so in the tradition of the greatest Americans who came before them; in the tradition of such giants as Diane Nash, John Lewis, Martin Luther King Jr, Susan B Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others— many of them young people at the time they first began to take a stand. Today's student activists deserve the same respect we afford these figures. Emma Gonzalez and David Hoggs face overwhelming opposition and harsh, sometimes personal, criticism for doing nothing more than taking a stand on an issue that personally touched their lives. Disagreement with their policy stance should never come before treating them as budding Americans eager to do their best for their country and their community. Certainly, argument against them must be more than an ad hominem statement about their age. Honest disagreement is normal and perfectly acceptable, but student activists should never be ridiculed simply for being student activists. Even young people can affect real change.
There's a reason the founding fathers never put an age restriction on the First Amendment.
