Arnold Kling has talked about the three axes model of political views. Conservatives care about civilization-barbarism. Progressives care about oppressors-oppressed. Libertarians care about freedom-coercion.
Most people I meet in person don’t seem to be as dogmatic about parenting as they are about politics, but there seem to be distinct axes for sure. Conservative types do seem to use the civilization-barbarism axis for parenting. They’ll talk about the importance of obedience much more so than progressive and libertarian types will. Look at the copy for this book and see what I mean.
Libertarians are definitely inclined to use the freedom-coercion axis for parenting.
At first I was confused about the progressive types. I didn’t see how they were using the oppressor-oppressed language in their discussion of parenting, but I think I actually can see it. Ha! I just googled “progressive parenting”, and the first hit I got was this. The tagline begins: “Being a Parent May Be the Hardest Job You’ll Ever Have”. I do think progressive types are more likely to talk about how hard it is to be a parent, especially a mom. And how institutions these days don’t support parenthood and other such complaints. Oh, and often the argument for doing things a certain way with the kids is that, as a parent, they have needs too. So the parents are the oppressed ones.
I’ll have to think about this application of the three axes model more. Am I over-fitting? What parenting axes seem natural to you?
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