How parents’ political views are affecting their kids’ mental health
https://nypost.com/2023/03/11/parents-political-views-affectt-their-kids-mental-health/American teenagers are having a tough time. Teenage girls are having a particularly tough time. According to a recent CDC report, nearly 60 percent of U.S. teen girls experience persistent sadness or hopelessness, double the rate of boys.
In 2021, said the report, 30 percent of teen girls seriously considered committing suicide — up nearly 60 percent from a decade ago. What is going on? Why have young people suddenly become so disillusioned?
Social media, we’re constantly told, is to blame. And TikTok may soon be banned or restricted by the Biden Administration. However, social media cannot be entirely held responsible.
Children do not raise themselves — and the attitudes and ideologies of their primary caregivers have a profound impact on their mental wellbeing.
Being a teenager is tough. Social media is not the only factor.
This includes political ideologies, which experts now conclude can directly shape how a child sees the world. And liberal parents appear to be creating a generation of left-leaning and deeply disaffected children.
Consider a recent study out of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology. Released in December, the research – which focused on the intersections of gender and politics – revealed that teens who identify as liberal are much more likely to be unhappy than teens with more conservative views.
According to the report, female adolescents are more likely to be liberal than male adolescents. And liberal girls are the most prone to depression. How prone? Between 2010 and 2018, they noted, symptoms of depression rose by more than 50% for “female liberals.”
Having leftist parent(s) can be detrimental to one's mental health.
Because, more often than not, teens adhere to the political beliefs of their parents – particularly mothers, according to research from political scientist Grant Michael Armstrong. That’s bad news for children whose parents lean left.
“People with conservative political attitudes tend to have better health than their liberal counterparts, largely because “the former place greater value on personal responsibility,” writes Scott McGreal in Psychology Today.
A recent Pew survey has also shown a clear correlation between progressive beliefs and compromised mental wellness – particularly among caucasians. According to Pew, over 60% of white respondents who described themselves as “liberal” or “very liberal” have been told they suffer from mental health conditions, more than twice the level of conservatives and three times the levels of moderates.
