We’ve heard stories about children “canceling” their conservative parents, cutting all ties with them over objections to their politics. But they should actually be thankful for their traditionalist elders because, a new study informs, the typical “rightist” parenting style can keep kids right in the head. In contrast, “leftist” parenting is more associated with youths who’ve left sanity.
As Fox News reports:
A June 2023 [Gallup] study surveying 6,643 parents and 1,580 adolescents found that conservative and very conservative parents were the “most likely to adopt the parenting practices associated with adolescent mental health,” the research reported in the Institute for Family Studies found.
“Adolescents with very conservative parents are 16 to 17 percentage points more likely to be in good or excellent mental health compared to their peers with very liberal parents,” the report said. “Only 55% of adolescents of liberal parents reported good or excellent mental health compared to 77% of those with conservative or very conservative parents.”
Conservative parents were more likely to adopt an “authoritative parenting style, characterized by both warmth and a high level of discipline,” Gallup economist and study author Jonathan Rothwell explained to Fox News Digital.
“Parents who set boundaries, establish routines, convey warmth and affection, and enforce rules effectively report a less contentious relationship with their adolescent child than parents who do not do these things, and this relationship is recognized by that child to be stronger and more loving.
What’s more, “As it happens, being raised by liberal parents is a much larger risk factor for mental health problems in adolescence than being raised in a low-income household with parents who did not attend college,” Rothwell writes in his report’s conclusion. “Children of conservative parents score significantly better on mental health using either a comprehensive measure of mental health based on several items, or just asking either parent or adolescents to summarize their mental health on a 1-5 scale. The gap is large.”
Nothing New — Just Forgotten
G.K. Chesterton once observed that nine “out of ten of what we call new ideas are simply old mistakes.” So it is here: While the term “liberal parenting” is relatively new, the style it describes dates back to antiquity. Rothwell addresses this, too.
“We have long understood that parents have distinct practices, and that these practices affect child development,” he informs. “In his book The Laws, Plato described how the wise, competent ruler Cyrus the Great nonetheless failed to raise wise and competent children by leaving their education to permissive caretakers who did not allow anyone to oppose the children and ‘compelled everyone to praise all that they said or did.’”
This begets the stereotypical spoiled, self-centered, narcissistic little prince or princess. But does it not sound familiar for another reason?
Think about now-decades-old “self-esteem” training — embraced by liberals especially — in which children are coddled and endlessly praised and criticism is forbidden. Is it any wonder it has bred today’s “snowflakes,” people so sensitive and intolerant of disagreement that they desperately want critics silenced and “safe spaces” provided? Are they not exactly like the spoiled royals of old, only without the titles?
In fact, this “dysfunctional parenting paradigm,” as family psychologist John Rosemond once put it, shares the name of our major liberal political party. As Rothwell points out, citing insights by Berkeley developmental psychologist Diana Baumrind, “‘democratic parenting,’ which was popularized in the 1960s, was not a good model” to employ. Rather, good parents exhibit the aforementioned “‘authoritative’ style of parenting,” Rothwell writes, which is the happy medium between “a cold or harsh ‘authoritarian’ parenting style” and “a lax ‘permissive’ style.”
“Authoritative parenting,” Rothwell later adds, citing late Stanford psychologist Eleanor Maccoby, “combines affection with attentive responsiveness to children’s needs, while imposing requirements for prosocial, responsible behavior.”
“Parents derive authority from their greater power and competence, and they cannot abdicate this authority without endangering the children,” Maccoby herself warned.
But then there’s a question: How much do some left-wingers really even care? In his 2008 piece “Don’t listen to the liberals — Right-wingers really are nicer people, latest research shows,” Peter Schweizer points out that leftists are almost twice as likely as rightists to say that parents shouldn’t sacrifice their own well-being for their children’s. And what of the stereotype of the warm, affectionate liberal?
Actually, research reveals that conservatives even hug their kids more, relates Schweizer.
The Apple — and the Tree
Schweizer states that libs would rather focus on their own “issues” than on their kids — and, boy, do they have issues. A 2021 Pew Research Center study found that more than 50 percent of young, liberal, white women have been diagnosed with some form of “mental health” problem. Moreover, reflecting this article’s thesis, 2022 research found that most mothers of “transgender” boys have psychiatric issues themselves. In the same vein, John Rosemond has made the case that “ADHD” is present in all children below age two and that correct socialization purges it from them — and that “liberal” parenting precludes this.
Really, this is just common sense. As X user “Dana” wrote about Rothwell’s study in what is an amusing but somewhat representative response (scroll down):
I can vouch for all this, too. I worked with children for close to 20 years and observed that the best-adjusted, most well-behaved kids had conservative parents (and, often, stay-at-home moms and a church life). In fact, I could generally discern how the parents voted just from observing their children.
Oh, one more thing: The “ADHD” kids didn’t exhibit their “ADHD” when with me. Apparently, they could decide to not be sick during that precise hour every week.
And, yes, I was authoritative.
