Can Validating Our Kids Help Democracy?
As a political scientist and mom of two young kids, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the ways in which parenting and politics intersect.
I became a mom first in 2019 and again in 2021, a little less than two months after I filed my PhD dissertation.
I went from thinking every day about the impact of voting and election laws—my focus for the past decade or so—to Googling assorted collections of mildly concerning words: “White nipple pain breastfeeding six weeks.” “Toddler red rash cheek raised dairy allergy.” “Climbing out of crib too soon parenting hacks.”
I’d always had the nagging feeling that my political work was somehow divorced from the rest of me. Having kids left me feeling fully cleaved in two. My Venn diagram of politics and parenting: no overlap.
Of course, the research says they do overlap. Public policy profoundly shapes family life—and not just in the obvious areas of abortion rights, family leave, the social safety net. Parents’ political behavior gets passed on to their kids, perpetuating civic engagement (or lack thereof) through the generations.
But these overlaps are still pretty disconnected from my daily reality. The parenting thing I spend the most time thinking about these days is how to help my children understand and articulate their own feelings—not obviously a political act.
And yet: I’m starting to think that this kind of parenting practice is profoundly important for democracy.
For this to make sense, I want to take a quick detour to explore the following idea:
Democracy requires freedom of thought.
There is a theory in political science called the Three Faces of Power. It was first developed by Steven Lukes, a British sociologist.
The basic idea is that power comes in three forms, each more insidious than the last.
- The first face of power is the ability to make a decision, either for yourself (non-coercive power) or for someone else (coercive power).
In political life, we typically say that people have power if they’re free to cast a vote in an election. That could be a vote for a candidate or, in the case of a ballot initiative, for or against an issue position. In a large society, each individual’s power might be pretty small—but taken together, we say that the public has political power.
- The second face of power is the ability to control which issues make it onto the political agenda in the first place.
This version of power is arguably more significant, because it shapes how much power others can exert down the line.
When political elites dictate which candidates or issues make it onto the ballot, they are exercising the second face of power. Voters still have some say, but that say is constrained within the choices laid out for them by more powerful actors.
- The third face of power is ideological. It’s the power to control what people think and want.
The third face of power makes it possible for us to operate under the guise of democracy, when in fact, we are being controlled by more powerful actors without realizing it.
Say reformers radically expand the set of candidates and issues on the agenda. And say we empower everyone to vote. These changes will absolutely make a difference for policy outcomes, and we should push for them.
But at the end of the day, we still won’t have a true democracy, because people won’t be free to develop their own political beliefs and preferences.
Can we really free our minds?
“But wait,” someone shouts into their computer screen, “there is no way to have a fully unconstrained mind!” Right.
Our brains are information-gathering machines, our thoughts an amalgamation of the ideas we’ve been exposed to throughout our lives. Every minute, media figures, political operators, and corporate advertisers are taking advantage of this, cleverly (and often subconsciously) inserting ideas that benefit them.
Even if we can’t escape this “third face” influence, I think we can at least be more aware of it. We can reflect on what messages we’ve been exposed to, whether or not they mesh well with our values, how we feel when we lean into one thought versus another.
It’s the work of therapy, really, or a good conversation: we take an idea that used to be a given, and we sit with it, grapple with it, turn it inside out, and determine whether it’s truly serving us.
(And then we do it again, and again, for the rest of our lives.)
I’m not a pollyanna. I don’t believe this sort of deliberative process is guaranteed to change people’s beliefs.
But I’ve also had many, many experiences in which, when given the space and structure to reflect, I’ve realized that something I thought I believed was actually someone else’s idea—something that didn’t quite sit right with me. When I’ve tuned into myself, my thoughts have evolved.
And now, back to parenting.
So much of what I do as a parent is help my children—especially my oldest—identify, value, and externalize their internal worlds.
This often takes the form of naming emotions: “You seem to feel sad right now.” I want each kid to understand what sadness feels like, so their future self can notice their emotional state, put a name to their feelings, and accurately describe their feelings to others.
It also takes the form of validation. If my kid says they’re scared about something that I personally find harmless, I really try not to jump in with a well-meaning, “Oh, that’s not scary!”
It’s more than wanting to prevent my child from feeling ashamed of her feelings, though that’s certainly part of it. I also never want my child to have the internal experience of an emotion—say, fear—and either not recognize it or immediately distrust it.
That’s been so much of my childhood and adult experience. I’m only now, in my 30s, learning to really tune in to myself.
So here’s what I’m wondering.
Could it be that, by helping our kids know and value their internal experiences, we’re setting them up to be less susceptible to the third face of power? And as the level of self-knowledge in society expands, will this make democracy truer?
I’m fully aware that this is a self-serving idea. It’s been hard to go from the (relatively) prestigious world of academic research to mothering, one of the less-valued jobs in our society. It’s tempting to adopt a framework that lends my parenting journey an aura of righteousness and a promise of impact.
Then again, self-serving ideas can be good ideas, too.
Fellow parents in particular: does this idea land for you? What else comes up around this idea of the intersection of parenting and politics?
We’ve clearly only scratched the surface…
P.S. My mom shared this poem with me today. I loved it, so I thought I’d pass its beauty along to you.
