If whiny kids grow up to be conservatives, how do you explain the sniveling psychosis on the Left side of the blogosphere , where unhinged haters are so threatened by conservative Washington Post blogger Ben Domenech (my former book editor) that they have resorted to attacking his education and his homeschooling parents. A sample (profanity alert):

damn. this little fucker has been groomed from the getgo.
bkny | 03.21.06 - 10:26 pm

Freaky
Luther | 03.21.06 - 10:27 pm | #

ALTMAN (voice-over): His mom admits home-schooling is a full- time job.

Don’t these women have lives?

Don’t they want lives?
Terry C, Coldplayer | 03.21.06 - 10:28 pm | #

So he was home-schooled and daddy has political connections… just wow.
cgreen | 03.21.06 - 10:28 pm | #

mom teaches 15-year-old Benjamin, 12-year-old Emily, 10-year-old Alice, and little Florence, who’s almost three.

I repeat: The woman didn’t have a life.
Terry C, Coldplayer | 03.21.06 - 10:29 pm | #

Home-schooling is like a lot of Rethug ideas, insidious once you understand its effects but incuous when you hear about it and never really examine it.
kei & yuri | Homepage | 03.21.06 - 10:32 pm | #

My apologies to those who think otherwise, but homeschooling is just plain WRONG, and should be inflicted on no child. Ever.
Sallyh, Madame Poissonniere | Homepage | 03.21.06 - 10:34 pm | #

Homeschooling is evil.
smalfish, enemy of the state | 03.21.06 - 10:34 pm | #

Wow, it’s really bitch-slap Ben Domenech day!
Buzz Bomb | 03.21.06 - 10:34 pm | #

Home schooling is certainly an effective way for abusive parents to avoid detection.

OTOH, charter schools rock.
Evacuee | 03.21.06 - 10:36 pm | #

First, Bush Derangement Syndrome.

Now: Ben Domenech Derangement Syndrome.

See Sister Toldjah for more.

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Reader Matthew P. on the whiny kids/conservatives study:

Two things might have an effect on this study based on the assumption that parental political affiliation generally is a good predictor of progeny political affiliation (I.e. the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree):

1. Liberal parents might be more likely to see their children as obedient and sweet because they have less conflict with their children. This may be because liberal parents typically have fewer rules for their children for ideological reasons – seeing socialization as the process of becoming an individual. On the other hand conservative parents are more likely to have rules for their children at a younger age and therefore might be more likely to see their child as willful or complaining as they test those boundaries. This may result from a tendency for conservative parents to have more rules for ideological reasons — seeing socialization as learning how to function with societal bounds.

2. In many liberal parenting situations both parents work outside the home which means that they interact with children less and therefore see less of the child’s attitude. In situations where children have less parental interaction they may over compensate by being overly obedient.

The problem with studies like this is that the infer causation of attributes from correlation of perceptions. They leave out well know intervening effects and are at best the kind of work I would expect of undergraduate sociology students (although I would have probably failed if I handing this in my college days).

On further reflection I question whether I would really even want children not to test their boundaries and always be pliant anyway– it would seem downright unhealthy. In the end I wonder if the study doesn’t merely reveal the fact that conservatives get the whining out of the way early and move on, while liberals never really get over it.

ShrinkWrapped, a real psychoanalyst, tackles the whiny kids/conservative study.

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