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Chapter 7: The Consequences and Future of the Politics of Parenthood
- State University of New York Press
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115 7 The Consequences and Future of the Politics of Parenthood This book has told the story of how parenthood and the family have become politicized in contemporary American politics. The politicization of parenthood has not been a purely elite-level, nor a purely mass-level phenomenon, but has characterized all of the key components of the electoral environment: the policies of the political parties, the rhetoric of presidential candidates, the news media’s election coverage, and regular Americans who are mothers and fathers. The politicization of parenthood at the mass and elite levels has been driven by and reflected fundamental shifts in American society and the structure of the American family, and in turn, has significantly shaped contemporary elections, candidates, and campaigns. Political parties and presidential candidates turned to the language of the family and started emphasizing policies targeted directly at parents in response to the unraveling of the traditional family and as anxiety about the state and strength of the American family became more pervasive in American society. Additionally , the parties have politicized parenthood as a strategic move to secure an electoral edge in a highly competitive political environment. The news media echoed and magnified the parent and family emphasis of the parties, realizing that family frames and parent-labels such as “Security Moms” and “Hockey Moms” were an easy and attractive way to frame and sell stories about politics. Turning to the mass level, this book documents that on many important policy issues, mothers and fathers are distinctive 116 The Politics of Parenthood blocs in the American electorate. In other words, parenthood is indeed political, but in different ideological directions for women and men. We argue that the broad politicization of parenthood documented in this book has important implications for our theoretical understandings in American politics as well as practical electoral politics. More specifically, this exploration into the politicization of parenthood and the family enriches our understanding of public opinion, partisan messaging, and representation; raises concerns about political reporting; and holds potential consequences for future election outcomes. In this concluding chapter we explore these broader implications and lay out several avenues for further research on the politics of parenthood. Parenthood and Political Socialization What citizens believe and why they believe it are crucial questions in a democracy. This is one of the central reasons why political scientists have spent so much time studying public opinion. Scholars have produced important and informative research looking at the way several different adult life experiences including marriage, joining the workforce, and growing older impact political views. This book represents the first systematic look at the political impact of one of life’s most life-changing experiences, having and raising children. Parenthood changes one’s life in profound ways, socially, economically, and psychologically. This book has demonstrated that parenthood is politically significant as well. Parents hold attitudes that are significantly different than those without children in the home on a fairly broad range of important policy issues. Documenting empirically that parenthood does in fact shape public opinion adds richness to our understanding of political attitude formation and attitude change across the life cycle. Admittedly, our results are based on cross-sectional analysis, which prevents us from controlling for selection into parenthood and proving causality. Nevertheless, we strongly suspect that the parenthood effects revealed in our analyses are not purely the product of selection effects. It seems implausible, for example, that women with distinctively liberal attitudes on social welfare issues would be so much more likely to have children than women with [35.173.178.60] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 19:32 GMT) 117 The Consequences and Future of the Politics of Parenthood more conservative views. Moreover, the socialization literature provides a strong theoretical foundation for expecting that parenthood would shape the political attitudes of parents. We hope that our work on parenthood as an agent of adult political socialization is just the beginning, and that it inspires more scholarly work in this interesting and important area of social science. One important avenue of future research will be to explore the effects of parenthood on political attitudes with a specific focus on variations in the parenting experience. For example, we would be interested in knowing whether the age of children significantly mediates parenthood effects. In other words, are mothers of young children particularly supportive of government efforts to provide day care? Are fathers of teenagers particularly conservative on cultural values issues such as abortion and gay marriage? Additionally , future research could explore...