These signs all over town, what do they say?
“It’s election season,” Mom said. “This fall, we’ll be able to vote for our mayor, school board members, and even our president!”
So begins the political education of children Kayden and Emma, the main characters of “Voting With Mommy,” a children’s book written by Eastvale City Councilwoman Jocelyn Yow and illustrated by Bonnie Lemaire.
Yow, 29, a mother of a 4-year-old named Kayden, hopes her book, released last month, will inspire families to talk to their children about civics in the hopes that they will vote as adults.
“I would like families, parents to introduce the concept of voting, to talk about voting and what’s going on around them at home, from a young age,” Yow said.
Research shows the path to the ballot box starts at home.
Children whose mothers voted in the previous presidential election were 20.3 percent more likely to vote in their first election, according to a study published by the Sandra Day O’Connor Institute for American Democracy.
“Parents have a tremendous influence on people’s interest in politics, the values they bring to politics and the habits they have about citizenship,” Bruce E. Cain, a professor of political science at Stanford University, said in a 2016 New York Times article about the role parents play in their children’s voting.
Statewide, voters ages 18 to 34 make up about a third of California’s adult population but only 21 percent of likely voters, the Public Policy Institute of California reported this summer. By comparison, California voters ages 55 and older make up 35 percent of the state’s adult population but 50 percent of likely voters.
A political science professor at Norco College and the first woman of color to be elected to the Eastvale City Council (she was also the youngest woman of color to become mayor of a city in California history), Yow said that growing up, “I was taught that you never talk politics at the dinner table.”
That changed her freshman year of college, when she went to a friend’s house for dinner.
“My friend’s parents were asking me for my opinion on some political issues that were happening at the time,” Yow said.
“This dinner and this experience really made me think and look at things from a different perspective and made me understand how politics affects all of us, whether we like it or not.”
The idea to write the book came to her while she was taking her son to his polling station, Yow said.
“He’s like, ‘What is this? What is this?’” she said. “If you’re around a young child, they’re very curious. They’re like, ‘What is this, what is this, what is this?’ … So I have to explain it all to him and I’m like, ‘Let me start writing this down.’”
It took Yow four years to write this book, which is his first.
“It’s one thing to have an idea and another to write it down, and I always got stuck,” she said.
Yow tried to think of “things that would interest little kids.”
“They care a lot about parks and playgrounds,” she said. “They don’t necessarily understand the concept of roads or streets or the city budget or public safety yet. But kids, you don’t touch their playgrounds and parks.”
As a professor, Yow said the Gen Z students – those born between 1997 and 2012 – she interacts with are “very engaged” in politics.
“They have opinions. They are fully aware of what is going on.”
Yow said she is concerned about where young people are getting the information from.
“I would rather be talking to my child about politics and what’s going on than having him get his information from social media or somewhere else in a few years,” she said.
“So it’s important that we start that conversation at home and guide them in how to find sources of information. I think we can start talking about current events at home, what’s going on, where to find accurate information instead of relying on social media.”
Yow will sign copies of her book on Saturday, Sept. 21, from 2 to 3 p.m. at the Harada Neighborhood Center, 13099 65th St., Eastvale. She will do the same on Saturday, Sept. 28, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Corona Public Library, 650 S. Main St.