Saying kids should be ‘well-behaved’ makes you ‘authoritarian,’ U. Mass scholars say
OPINION: Do you think kids shouldn’t throw tantrums in public? That makes you an authoritarian
Matt Lamb - Associate Editor •June 13, 2025 • The College Fix
“If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything,” so said Nobel prize winning economist Ronald Coase.
It is time to add a corollary – if you torture language enough, it will confess to anything.
University of Massachusetts researchers did just that with a recent article in The Conversation explaining how “authoritarian” views are tied into opposition to “transgender rights.”
Most people, I’m guessing, would say “authoritarian” politics includes gulags and widespread censorship of the news. But for these researchers, it means saying children should be “obedient, well behaved and well mannered.” The authors on this article are Tatishe Nteta, Adam Eichen, Jesse Rhodes, and Lane Cuthbert. Nteta, Eichen, and Rhodes previously used a flawed definition of “sexism” to argue it drove opposition to Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Those who tend to favor obedient children are scored as having more authoritarian views,” the researchers wrote. In contrast, less authoritarian people think kids should be “independent, creative and considerate.”
Right off the bat, it’s obvious these definitions are flawed. First, “authoritarian” parenting is different from “authoritarian” politics. Second, the terms used for children are not mutually exclusive. “Considerate” and “well-mannered” are synonyms.
Children can also be “well-behaved” while being “independent.” In fact, “well-behaved” can be considered a prerequisite for “independent” – a child who has good manners and can share toys is more likely to be able to play independently, without parents or teachers needing to intervene.
The basis of this poll and the studies it relies on for the definition of authoritarian are thus fatally flawed. The best I can offer to salvage the findings is that “creative” is coded left for people and liberal people are also more opposed to restrictions on transgender drugs and surgeries. It is also possible conservatives are somewhat more likely to have children whereas liberals are not.
So conservative respondents might have been responding based on their experience parenting, whereas liberals were responding based on what they thought parenting would be like. “Independent” sounds great if it means a three-year-old playing outside in the sand. When you’ve seen a three-year-old start running with scissors it seems different.
In any case, it is not clear that recognizing “diverse views” is always part of the political left and never part of the political right. Democratic politicians, such as Colorado Governor Jared Polis, want to force bakers to provide services to same-sex weddings. Respecting “diverse views” would mean acknowledging some people are opposed to same-sex “marriages” and we should allow them to opt-out of contributing to them.
Likewise, Republican support for school choice, which includes homeschooling, charter schools, Catholic schools, and public schools, recognizes there are “diverse” ways people learn, and parents should have options.
What this article ultimately comes down to is maligning people who have different views on the surgical and chemical mutilation of kids as “authoritarian,” much like the left likes to use the term “racist” to attack their opponents.
It is a favored buzzword of The Conversation, which has run articles in the past two months saying military parades and defunding PBS are “authoritarian.” Thankfully, the maligning is not working, as even The Conversation acknowledges public opinion growing against transgender drugs and surgeries – catching up to the truth.
MORE: 103 things higher ed declared racist in 2024
IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: A child cries; Phil Nguyen/Pexels
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