Do You Evangelize Your Politics to Your Kids?
I wonder if anyone's evolved on this like I have.
Until a couple years back I considered it good parenting to be an "honest broker" when explaining political divisions with my kids: I'd present both sides as respectfully as I could, say which side I agreed with, and leave it at that. Now I consider it my duty as a parent to mold my kids into two informed, dyed-in-the-wool conservatives, and so I present political divisions as having correct and incorrect sides (at least on those issues that animate me). I'm still honest, but the mission is different.
Why the change? A) The threat to their future that is Obama B) Exposure to just how shamelessly our school system seeks to indoctrinate our kids in liberalism -- an effort that was particularly repulsive during Governor John Kasich's fight with the teachers unions here in Ohio last year. As Rush Limbaugh says, "I am equal time."
The results have been amazing: Our kids can now formulate conservative arguments as teenagers better than I could 10 years ago as a thirty-something.
Good parenting or brainwashing?
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Apr '12
Re: Do You Evangelize Your Politics to Your Kids?
Scott, great parenting. The Keft gets their view said all the time.
Mar '12
Re: Do You Evangelize Your Politics to Your Kids?
Fifth grade ('83), it was NEA bumper stickers all over the classroom (against the rules - but it was allowed). Eighth grade it was two hours of "value clarification" every other week. The teacher who "taught" it, sans curriculum, told the students that their parents were likely teaching ideas that were against what was right for their town, and the country as a whole. It was important that he clarify their views so that they would be accepted in the appropriate groups, schools, and in society. We found out about this at the dinner table one evening. (A pet peeve of mine: fewer families have supper together--idea for another POST?) Our State has bought into the method Restorative Justice. Children having to face another student or a teacher for anything from trash talk, to physical violence, to sexual assault with the principal or other students as referee. (Too often, the rules for this program are not followed.) Aside from how it's billed, I think the program was meant to teach children early that it doesn't work to fight the system. You evangelize, or someone else will.
Apr '12
Re: Do You Evangelize Your Politics to Your Kids?
On what to call "parenting" or "child rearing"-- it's just (JUST! Oy!) "raising kids." Kind of like we don't have a word for "spousing" that I know of-- wife-ing, or husband-ing.
It's... like... a state of being, more than a job.
Oct '10
Re: Do You Evangelize Your Politics to Your Kids?
Excellent! This I would pay to see.
Aug '10
Re: Do You Evangelize Your Politics to Your Kids?
I vote 'good parenting'. Daughter Tall is 10, and I try very consciously to present conservative views to her, especially in terms of economics.
We were on vacation this week, and in an airport in China. We had time to get some food, which was mediocre and overpriced, as airport food is around the world. So I asked her why she thought that was so, and what might be different if there were more places you could eat at an airport.
I figure if I can get the principles of supply and demand and market competition firmly established in her thinking, a whole lot of positive politico-economic knock-on effects will follow. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of how goods and services are produced, paid for, and consumed that seems to me to lie behind so much of the junk kids learn in school, and which leads to magical socialistic thinking.
I also of course 'train up' my daughter in following our Lord; that is the duty of a Christian parent, and should go forward without doubts of any sort.
Apr '12
Re: Do You Evangelize Your Politics to Your Kids?
Teaching your offspring to think and to not follow the crowd is what is important. I just got tochow my sons the online version of the Canadian National Post which is reporting the uRepublican convention. Normally there are twenty comments, max. Right now there are hundreds of comments using Disques. They have one or two talking points and this point is repeated by hundreds of...drones.
I did see Huffington Post asking people to sign up for the election as helpers and this is what Huffington is doing. It is a disgrace, they are ruining online comments. I will be dropping the National Post. Thank heavens for Ricochet.
Jul '10
Re: Do You Evangelize Your Politics to Your Kids?
Do both ..... it will bounce off of them until they get some expereince to add context to what your trying to teach them.
Your probably a good dad just because you asked the question.
Jun '12
Re: Do You Evangelize Your Politics to Your Kids?
As long as you're teaching your children how to think along with what you think, your kids will be better off. Primary, secondary and tertiary education in the US seems to be concerned mostly with teaching pupils what to think, so someone has to teach them how it's done.
I am the eldest of 4 boys, and my father certainly gave us his opinion (Mom loves Sarah Palin but finds politics generally boring), but he gave us room to question and disagree. When explaining another side's opinion, I don't recall he made bad faith arguments. We were home-schooled most of primary school, which certainly helped in the learning-how-to-think-department, and then went to public schools for the rest of our education. Now that we're all of voting age, two of us are conservatives, one seems to be libertarian, and one is a bit liberal, though he is interested in business, so I think he'll come around eventually. The best education to be had is at home, especially around the dinner table.
Aug '12
Re: Do You Evangelize Your Politics to Your Kids?
Back in the old days, I told my kids that I would let them know when their teachers were wrong, but they still had to learn how to tell the teachers what they wanted to hear.
In parent-teacher conferences, I would tell the teacher that I understood that they were not responsible for my kids education -- I was -- and that they were not to worry because when they were wrong, I would be sure to let my kids know.
We all got along fine.
Jan '12
Re: Do You Evangelize Your Politics to Your Kids?
Since I'm "indoctrinating" my kids, I'm going to have to say this is good parenting. My kids are 8 and 12. Neither is allowed to say things like "I don't like Obama," they have to cite specific policy disagreements. It's great watching my 12 yr old daughter discuss politics with her ultra-liberal grandmother. Nana just retreats to "You're not old enough to understand" rather than engaging my daughter's well-thought out points. Pretty sad when you can't even beat a 12 yr old in an argument.
Both my wife and I make sure to discuss politics with our kids. We explain our reasoning. We also try to explain the other side's reasoning while showing how it's faulty at the same time - usually because it's not reasoning at all, just emoting.