children, post-childhood

A night last week, i was walking down my street to meet Naomi half way to her house, to give her back one of the many things I have borred from her over time. I was approaching the corner of my street when i was walking past these three kids and over heard them talking.
"Well, dont you know, that judgement day is going to be in 2012?"
"What? that sucks! I wont even be 15."
"Yeah! I wont even see my sweet 16, that sucks."

At first I laughed to myself and resisted the urge to turn around and tell them that the world is indeed, not, atleast for any biblical reason, going to end in 2012.

Then as i continued walking, the whole idea of this infuriated me.
Honestly, what parent, educates there kids to think that they wont even live to see golden years of their own life? What is the reason for 12 year old-and under kids to be worried about having to live up the rest of their life within the next 4 years? Fucking church.

So I continued walking, met Naomi, then turned around and came back. When i approached my corner, the same 3 kids were still in the same general area, still talking. I passed by them this time and this time, the topic was politics.
"Who do you think is going to win?"
"Well, Obama will probably win, not McCain"
"Who's McCain??"
"The other guy that is in the running"
"what about Hillary?"
"Oh, she's out"
"really?"
"Yeah, she's was out a while ago"
"oh man."
"Yeah"
"Hm, i like Obama, he's hot."

Ok. Now, what i want to know, is why these kids arent playing on swings and not worrying about their life ending and who the next potential president might be, whether he's hot or not. They really shouldn't care.

This whole situation got me to thinking, and wondering, how many other kids worry about such things enough to discuss it with their, just as concerned, friends. I'm not sure yet whether this is an absolutely horrible thing that kids are apparently concerned with the concept of politics or not, but it's definitely different from what I remember thinking about as a kid.