Parents should talk politics to kids

Instead of sheltering kids from political views, parents should take an active role in teaching them to their offspring--at least this is the stance being taken by the authors of two popular children's books.

"Parents who believe in traditional values should absolutely try to instill those values in their kids," insists Katharine DeBrecht. "Liberals have been using books in our schools and libraries for years to hoist their leftwing agenda on children. Parents who believe in traditional values have no choice but to respond and make sure that their kids hear their side of the story."

DeBrecht's Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed garnered national attention for its portrayal of Democratic senators Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy as cartoon villains who tax and regulate a lemonade stand run by two young brothers. Then she unveiled Help! Morn! Hollywood's in My Hamper, which used illustrated look-alikes of Barbra Streisand, Tom Cruise, and Madonna to teach kids not to try to emulate the celebrities they see in the movies and on television.

DeBrecht, a mother of three, points to books such as King & King (where a prince decides to marry another prince) and Rainbow Fish (where a beautiful fish is bullied into giving away his shiny scales so that all fish look the same) as examples of children's books with a liberal bias that are prevalent in a number of school curriculums.

While approaching the subject from a differing political position than DeBrecht, Jeremy Zilber--a visiting assistant professor at Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisc., and the author of Why Mommy is a Democrat, agrees that politics should not be considered an out-of-bounds topic for parents.

"One of the most important and challenging tasks facing parents is instilling a set of values in their children," says Zilber, whose book uses a family of squirrels to illustrate Democratic values. "Books... offer parents a means to increase their children's awareness, interest, and understanding of American politics while ... introducing them to the core values of a [particular] party"

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COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning