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Moms for Liberty may have dropped off the front page and out of the headlines, but its core argument—that the government is out to usurp parents' rights and undermine their ability to raise their children—is alive and well. If anything, it is likely to become even more prominent in our political discourse as the 2024 election approaches.
This rhetoric has been used for everything from coordinated book bans to removing social emotional learning from educational curriculum. It has been used to sway school board elections and has even spilled out of the classroom and the halls of public education to influence key gubernatorial elections.
Recent findings from the Culture Change Project shed light on why the parents' rights rhetoric has been so effective and remains politically relevant. This research also offers ideas to counter this narrative and advocate for a role for government in supporting the health and well-being of children in the U.S.—while recognizing that it is not currently living up to its responsibility.
Mindsets About Government
The parents' right rhetoric is powered, in part, by three distinct but inter-related cultural mindsets—implicit ways of understanding and making sense of the world.
—Personalism: Thinking with this mindset, people equate the whole system of government with elected officials. The mindset leads people to attribute government failures to bad actors rather than bad rules and systems. In the context of "parents' rights," this mindset leads people to see government as a set of individual actors intent on taking rights from other individual actors—parents. This sparks opposition to government's role in supporting children's health and well-being. In an election year, when the country is hyper-focused on individual candidates, this mindset is extra salient and will be difficult to navigate.
—Government as them: When thinking with this mindset, government is understood as a body apart from and standing in opposition to what people want and need. It's easy to sow fear and distrust when government is seen as nefariously promulgating its own agenda at the expense of the interests of the people. The mindset disrupts public conversations about public policy by casting government policy as at odds with public interest. It is at the very heart of the parent's rights rhetoric and explains why this government vs. parents framing has been so powerful.
—The primacy of personal liberty: Thinking with this mindset, people focus on the importance of personal rights, such as freedom of speech, religion, and assembly. They assume that, in theory, the role of government is to protect liberties. But more often than not, people see that, in reality, government infringes on these freedoms. People reason that we need to take action to limit the role of government in order to protect children. The emphasis on the "rights" of parents, and of government as threatening these rights is part of what's the behind the emotional resonance of the parents' rights movement.
Counteracting Strategies
While these mindsets are powerful, there are ways to create a more productive conversation around the role and responsibility of government and public policy in supporting child health and well-being.
Avoid the temptation to fight rights with rights. It is tempting to reclaim rights-based language by countering with language about the importance of children's rights. Our research shows that this strategy is likely to backfire. People associate rights with liberties, such as freedom of speech or religion. When thinking about children, they reason that these rights do not pertain to children and then reject the notion of children's rights and any information that follows.
Avoid abstract discussions of "the government." Discussions of "the government" activate "government as them" thinking and push people to see government as "other," "over there," and working against rather than in the interest of the people. This plays into parents' rights rhetoric and builds skepticism and worry about government over-reach.
Get concrete and connect policy with well-being. Emphasizing how policy and governmental actions affect people's everyday lives and well-being can create space for people to see a necessary and important role for government. Effective framing requires explaining how policies directly impact children's well-being. For example, explanations about how designing and resourcing a robust public transportation system helps kids and families access opportunities that support well-being can be helpful. Importantly, this does not mean shying away from critiques of the ways that government is not meeting its obligations.
Give parents and caregivers a clear role. Framing parents and caregivers as actors with expertise and agents of change who must be consulted and listened to can inoculate against the tendency to see government as actively working to undermine parents. It can also help guard against the tendency to exclusively blame parents when children are not doing well.
The parents' rights rhetoric has fueled division, promulgated racism and transphobia, and undermined the well-being of children now and into the future. When government is pitted against parents, children suffer. By understanding the mindsets that make these arguments so powerful for so many, we can think of ways of reframing the role of government and the relationship between parents and public policy in building child well-being.
Moira O'Neil is a sociologist and senior vice president of research interpretation at the FrameWorks Institute.
Nat Kendall-Taylor is a psychological anthropologist and CEO of the FrameWorks Institute.
The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.
