Of Squirrels and Monsters

The rightwing blogosphere is all aflutter about a book called Why Mommy is a Democrat, which features a mommy squirrel explaining to her baby squirrel why she’s a Democrat. Funny, but they didn’t seem too concerned about Help! Mom! There are Liberals Under My Bed!—which features caricatures of actual prominent Democratic politicians posing as the “monsters” under a child’s bed. I guess that was just all in good fun, unlike these heinous, dogmatic squirrels who talk about sharing and going to school.

I’m not a parent, so take this for whatever you think it’s worth, but I imagine the best way to teach a child about one’s political principles is simply to live by them. The Democrat book doesn’t seem to be all that nasty, serving as more of a primer on Democratic tenets, but the anti-liberal book is a real piece of work, not enlightening about conservative ideas, but just basically denigrating liberal ones instead.

Of course, demonizing those with whom you disagree is much easier and less time consuming than living by example, so I guess the book is helpful for the busy conservative parent whose quality time is diminished by a demanding schedule of picketing abortion clinics and petitioning the legislature to criminalize gay marriage. After all, Take Your Child to Work Day only comes once a year.