By Juliana Vasquez | Staff Writer
By the time they’ve reached college, students are often making decisions for themselves. They no longer live under their parents’ roof, but the influence remains. But does that influence follow students all the way to the ballot box?
According to Dr. Patrick Flavin, chair of the political science department, parents have a profound impact on their children’s eventual political ideologies.
“Where you see the highest match between the partisanship of the kids and the partisanship of the parents is when the parents are more politically involved and when you’re talking about politics around the house,” Flavin said. “Even parents that don’t sit their kids down … sometimes the subtle cues shape how children lean in political orientation.”
Dr. Nicole McAninch, clinical associate professor of child and family studies, said at the end of the day, it all boils down to the values parents teach their children.
“Parents have a significant impact on the value system and the ideological system that children develop over time. We’re all impacted by the messages that we hear growing up in our parents’ home,” McAninch said.
Even as children develop into adulthood and go to the polls for the first time, politics and willingness to speak about political views continue to be impacted by child-parent relationships, McAninch said.
“Some families choose not to talk about politics at all because they know that it’s going to bring up conflict,” McAninch said. “It really depends on how willing our families are to listen to one another, particularly when different family members might have different political ideologies or belief systems.”
Dallas freshman Brianna Harrison and her parents are Republicans. She said her parents initially impacted her political ideology before she had the opportunity to learn more.
“As I learned more about politics, I ended up leaning towards the Republican side anyway because I’m more conservative about how I think about things,” Harrison said.
Littleton, Colo., freshman Catie Watkins said neither she nor her parents necessarily leans one way or the other. She said her parents never really discussed politics and when they did, they argued for both sides.
“It showed me that it’s OK to question both sides, and it’s OK to support bits and pieces of either side and not fully agree with one or the other,” Watkins said.
Strasburg, Colo., senior Katherine Barber is a Democrat, and her parents are Republicans. She said she grew up as a Republican, but as she started to learn more, her opinions shifted.
“Where I grew up, Republicanism is the only thing you ever see and hear, so those were the only opinions that I ever heard,” Barber said. “As I started to get older and started to learn about other perspectives, that affected how I viewed Democratic ideas.”
