My friend Mendy sent me an email this morning with this website. She’s in to child psychology, hence the ‘thinking mother’s’ magazine. I found the topic very interesting and read both sides of the debate. Not having children I haven’t fully made up my mind about this. Having said that I would imagine I would go with what my parents did: teaching me to think for myself.
From an early age – or so my mother tells me – I was inquisitive. I went so far as to question authority, something most adults would not want in a child. My parents, on the other hand, didn’t mind…or at least I don’t think they did. On the flip side of this coin, though, is the fact that I was raised in an evangelical Baptist church in the south of America. This innately instilled in me values which a Republican household would most likely want in their child. The difference here is that my father has always leaned to the Right whereas my mother has always leaned to the Left. Perhaps that is why they chose to teach me to think for myself; they couldn’t agree on anything! That is a joke, but in a way it is probably not far from the truth. Certainly there are times when my husband and I don’t agree on an issue and this would be one we would want to leave up to the child. My husband has said that he would want any child of ours to choose his/her own religion so I certainly don’t think he would want to force any of our political beliefs on the child.
To an extent both sides are right. There are basic values identifiable in one party over another. If you teach your child these values does it not follow that, in a way, you are teaching them to follow your party? In my own life I’ve gone from one end of the political spectrum to the other. Before I went to university I think I was a Republican. The reason I say ‘I think’ is because I’m not entirely sure. I didn’t vote for Bush in 2000. I think I might have claimed to be Republican because I thought that’s what good southern church-going folk do. But then I discovered that my beliefs didn’t quite fit with them and I went Democrat full-hog by the 2004 primary season. The idiot savant representing the Republicans had a lot to do with it too, I’m sure.
In the end, though, I believe children will make up their own mind regardless. I was raised (if not deliberately, then at least circumstantially) to be a Republican but I ended up a Democrat. My father certainly doesn’t feel like he’s failed as a good conservative; rather, I would think he’s happy that I question authority and think for myself. The only thing my father has ever said he would (jokingly) disown me for is joining the American Civil Liberties Union, which I haven’t…yet.