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D.L. Mayfield (they/them) @dlmayfield.bsky.social

There is a direct link between authoritarian parenting practices and creating populations that clamor for authoritarian leaders! This stuff is what evangelical parenting is all about: open.substack.com/pub/strongwi...

feb 13, 2025, 6:30 pm • 5 4

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Rednekulo @rednekulo.bsky.social

I'm not sure this works in practice. The movement towards authoritarianism in the US is recent and I would say that parenting methods have not gotten stricter overall since say the 50s. In fact the generation there went the exact opposite way. I doubt there is such a neat and tidy link.

feb 13, 2025, 6:49 pm • 0 0 • view
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D.L. Mayfield (they/them) @dlmayfield.bsky.social

I’ve been studying the evangelical parenting methods from the 1970s on and they are extremely authoritarian. It was a backlash to “permissive” parenting that conservatives saw leading to feminism, the civil rights, and protesting the Vietnam war.

feb 13, 2025, 6:55 pm • 2 0 • view
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Rednekulo @rednekulo.bsky.social

But were they sufficiently more authoritarian than parenting methods from the 1950s or 40s on average? There were also a lot of very permissive parents in the 1970s. Over the last 20+ years teaching college, I would say that there is more disdain for authority among the students nowadays.

feb 13, 2025, 7:03 pm • 0 0 • view
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D.L. Mayfield (they/them) @dlmayfield.bsky.social

Well your last sentence sounds like every evangelical parenting book making the case for why kids need to be spanked 😂

feb 13, 2025, 7:05 pm • 0 0 • view
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Rednekulo @rednekulo.bsky.social

Only if you take it as a negative. I'd say there is good and bad disdain for authority. The bad one is when students have disdain for experience, knowledge, science, etc. The good one is disdain for arbitrary authority.

feb 13, 2025, 7:09 pm • 0 0 • view
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Rednekulo @rednekulo.bsky.social

For example, the fact that the usual GOP voter has now disdain for the authority of the scientific community is one of the reasons we're in this mess. I'd say that is something that has changed in the last few decades.

feb 13, 2025, 7:12 pm • 0 0 • view
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D.L. Mayfield (they/them) @dlmayfield.bsky.social

I’ve been working on my thesis for a few years now and I think evangelical parenting methods are extremely authoritarian and are an overlooked part of this conversation (and disdain for science is absolutely a part of it).

feb 13, 2025, 7:23 pm • 1 0 • view
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Rednekulo @rednekulo.bsky.social

I live in a very very red state in a somewhat rural part. I don't necessarily see it. I would actually say that the biggest problem kids are those that act most spoiled and entitled, and that seems to me to be more of an issue with the GOP electorate. 1/2

feb 13, 2025, 7:31 pm • 0 0 • view
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Rednekulo @rednekulo.bsky.social

I don't think the GOP voters want an abusive father figure for themselves. They want that for others. They want "revenge" for not getting everything they think they are entitled to (which they think is everything). 2/2

feb 13, 2025, 7:36 pm • 0 0 • view
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Rednekulo @rednekulo.bsky.social

And I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way.

feb 13, 2025, 7:06 pm • 0 0 • view