A SLEW of children’s political books has crowded US booksellers’ shelves as partisan authors peddle their opposing liberal and conservative beliefs to an audience that is much too young to vote.
“Some daddies are called Democrats. Do you know why your daddy is a Democrat?” writes Jeremy Zilber in his book due out next month, Why Daddy is a Democrat.
“I think it’s good for parents to talk to their kids about politics,” says Zilber, who estimates he has sold 24,000 copies of the first in the series, Why Mommy is a Democrat, a self-published, 28-page primer on liberal values.
“It’s important to start getting them interested in politics at a young age because so many of our interests are formed in childhood.”
What do you make of it?
Social programming begins in the early years. Note the need for cross-cultural training for expats.
I have acquired and honed my talents for observing the Kafkaesque nation we have become.
There was a sci-fi movie called “They Live” in which authority wrests control of the population by subliminals in everyday media.
Could I get a job at cognitiveliberty?
Just this morning Boston’s own channel seven featured a piece about a mother and son caught attempting to steal one of those donation containers for Mother Against Drunk Driving from a convienience store. In true fascistic marketing techniques the “newscast” went on to explain how heinous a crime such a thing was. How this mother could “loose” her son for encouraging such behavior and blah, blah, blah. They even went so far as to “interview” a normal person spouting out the “how could anyone do that” meme.
Almost every morning now “Nazinews” ruins my morning coffee.
http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/
Thinking people actually have not only a word, but an organization for it.
They Live is an awesome film.
That said, encouraging theft in your children is one of those things society has a right to care about.
I don’t object to that as a concept and perhaps it’s a poor illustration of what I see as deliberate media influence. Most people don’t have any media or marketing training. Kind of like subliminal advertizing.
What — it’s not OK anymore to want them to grow up to be president?
Let me just say there are far higher callings.
it’s part of instilling values. I make sure my kid knows how i feel about injustice and unfairness. he’s a little too young for partisan stuff yet, but soon enough. he’ll have the tools to make the right (or should I say “left”) decision.
His mom’s even more left than ME. She’s an outright socialist.
I must admit that I’ve been educating the boran2 boy for some time as to the many sins of Bushco and creeping Republicanism.
I think kids see right through politics.
I, and virtually all of my third-grade classmates, thought Nixon was a total creep. We were McGovern supporters. I remember how mad I was when I found out that BOTH of my parents had voted for that mean, creepy guy, Nixon. I had BEGGED them to vote for McGovern.
Several years later, on the day Nixon resigned, my folks broke out the bubbly — the first time I had tasted champagne — and told me I had been right about him all along.
Kids are a lot smarter, and better judges of character, than we think they are.
im still trying to figure out new math
if they really want to have an impact they should make partisan video games with lots of sex and violence.
“Won’t do you a bit of good to review math.”
it isn’t about friggin’ POLITICS and PARTIES and PARTISANSHIP, fercryinoutloud… it’s about values and principles and beliefs… teaching a kid to be a democrat or a republican is total and complete bullshit… teach the kid how to be a decent human being, someone who sees others as dignified human beings, someone who can empathize, someone with compassion, someone who wants to learn, to grow, to love, to find real meaning in life, and then let the kid figure out where and how to build those things into his or her life… if there is a god out there (and, speaking for myself, i believe that there is), i am relatively certain he or she doesn’t give a damn whether you’re a republican or a democrat, whether you’re a citizen of the united states or turkmenistan, whether you follow the koran, the torah, or the bible… what really matters is what you believe, the way you live your life, and how and in what direction you’ve continued to learn and grow…
I tend to agree with the Prof. But, I couldn’t help letting my politics influence my kid. When she was in first grade, she was doing an art project in a circle of kids. She blurted out in the middle of class, “All who hate Bush, raise your hand”. The teachers giggled and promptly told her that this was art class, not Poli Sci.
She’s since learned that politics is a tough subject for common sociality, but that doesn’t stop her from working for social justice.
I teach my kid that we all need to help one another and she sees that every day in her poor urban environment.
I’ve noticed that kids who are raised in a liberal environment are far less likely to rebel (eg, switch sides) than kids raised in an oppressive, conservative environment. Since conservatives breed more, it will always be an uphill battle.
I think kids raised in a doctrinaire environment tend to rebel, whether liberal or conservative, because kids – especially as they move into adolescence – have a terrific radar for hypocrisy and intellectual inconsistency and will jump onto either like a dog onto a steak.
It’s only later that children come to understand the social and (especially) economic constraints that might force their parents to endure situations that they (the parents) are well aware are less than honest and true to their beliefs. It is easier to identify the problem than to realize that the forces that created it may be too much for one person to overcome, or might take years of collective action to address.
Thus Twain’s quote:
“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”
If parents are open to honestly do some self-examination as a result of the questions raised by their teens, the adolescent years can be a time of great personal growth and renewal for parents as well. Unfortunately, too few parents are.
It was the questions and challenges from my older son that forced me to face up to the fact that the religious doctrines I had inherited from my parents and passed on to my children because “they needed to have some kind of religious upbringing” (even though on an intellectual level I knew I couldn’t accept ideas like the virgin birth and resurrection of Jesus) were ideas I could not defend. So we called off the confirmation classes and dad went into a religious midlife crisis (mom had already quietly gone through one as well)…
If by a “liberal” upbringing you mean a willingness to question ideas, or an openness to new ideas, then based on my experience I agree. Other than minor issues with staying out too late, we had an amazingly easy time with both of our sons’ teen years.
BTW, the son that had to endure dad’s midlife crisis went on to become a socialist in college, while his younger brother is something of a “strident agnostic” among his red-state peers: “I have no idea if God exists, and neither do you!”
Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. Liberal parents tend to allow their kids to express their own ideas and are more apt to allow difference in opinion. This is not true across the board, but rather a generalization. When a parent enforces a strict adherence to certain ideals, whether it be religion, morality, or politics, one risks turning the kid against the same for life.
I love that Twain quote. It is so true. :>)
The temptation is understandable, but I find these books — and there are plenty on both sides — kind of repulsive. Childhood is the one time people have to explore their world, to be surprised by its mystery and beauty, to be a little free of the propaganda wars.
Books and video that try to mold kids into partisans are really making them into objects for their own purposes, seems to me. Let them be free for just a little while. The political wars will come to them soon enough. If they are prepared with deeper values and understanding they will recognize on their own which politics, if any, reflect the persons they are becoming.