Partisanship impacted more than voting preference according to a report that detailed how much lower the risk of mental illness is for kids of conservative parents.
“It is largely about parenting.”
Leftist styles of upbringing frequently tout lines like “it takes a village” as they promote the indoctrination of kids in government-run schools to advance their ideological agenda. Now, according to a study conducted by The Brookings Institution senior fellow Jonathan Rothwell with the Institute for Family Studies and Gallup, the impact of parental politics on the well-being of kids was readily apparent.
“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. Only 55% of adolescents of liberal parents reported good or excellent mental health compared to 77% of those with conservative or very conservative parents,” stated the report.
“Very conservative parents, on average, enjoy the strongest relationships with their adolescent children, and liberals experience the worst. The difference is large and statistically significant at 95% confidence levels,” the report asserted. “Conservative parents are 8 percentage points more likely to be in a good relationship with their adolescent child than liberal parents, and the gap is 14 percentage points between very conservative and liberal parents.”
Rothwell remarked that the parent-child relationship largely went ignored in studying youth mental health, preferring to focus on the availability of mental health services, diagnosticians and how often youth may be confronted with varied forms of discrimination.
Rising rates of youths contemplating suicide in the wake of lockdowns and growing social media pressures had led to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that found roughly 60% of American teen girls felt “persistent sadness or hopelessness,” a rate twice that of their male peers. It also found teen girls were more likely to be liberal than male adolescents. And liberal girls are the most prone to depression.”
Teens of liberal parents ‘much more likely to be unhappy’ than conservative peers according to recent study https://t.co/LkqW0neWnJ via @americanwire_
— Bo Snerdley (@BoSnerdley) March 12, 2023
“Parental political ideology is another strong predictor of parenting style. Liberal parents had the lowest scores, meaning they were the least likely to endorse items indicating warm, disciplined parenting,” claimed Rothwell’s report.
“Just 40% of liberal parents scored above average on the index, whereas 71% of very conservative parents and 56% of conservative parents did,” it noted. “Very liberal parents score roughly the same as moderate parents (48% and 49% respectively).”
“Disciplinary action shows the largest political divide. For example, 80% of very conservative parents disagreed with the statement ‘my child often gets their way when we have a conflict’ compared to 66% of conservative parents, 64% of moderate parents, 53% of liberal parents, and 55% of very liberal parents. Very conservative parents are also somewhat more likely to report giving their child hugs and kisses every day,” the findings detailed.
Drawing a delineation between “authoritative” and “authoritarian” parenting styles, with the former described as “warm, responsive, and rule-bound, disciplined parenting” and the latter as “cold or harsh,” politically right parents weren’t found to be sacrificing bonds with their kids either from their preferred style.
“Generally speaking, political conservatism is associated with more responsive and discipline-oriented parenting, or what the child development literature would characterize as an ‘authoritative’ style, in contrast to permissive or authoritarian styles. This relationship between conservativism and parenting remains significant even after controlling for an extensive list of parental demographic and socio-economic measures,” the report said.
Lashing out at “national public health leaders” who put pharmaceutical and medical industrial complex responses over addressing the actual problems, as so often seen with those suffering gender confusion, Rothwell went on to conclude, “The nation’s mental health leaders need to resist the temptation to be hip to the latest cultural fads and recommit to translating useful scientific research to the public. That means being honest about the youth mental health crisis: It is largely about parenting.”
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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