FITTING HERSELF FOR THE FRAME:

The politics of the Supernanny (Ellen Goodman, May 15, 2005, Boston Globe)

THE ONE reality show that I became addicted to was ''Supernanny." Week after week, episode after episode, the producers featured children who gave new meaning to the word ''brat" and parents who made the doormat look like it had a spine. [...]

It was months before I wondered how come all these families had only one problem: discipline. How come all the makeovers had the same solution: getting parents in charge and putting kids in the naughty circle?

I was not surprised when Focus on the Family decided to sponsor the last episode. Their ad, a mini-feature of its own, featured sweet little tots announcing: ''I'm going to make a scene at the grocery store. Right at the checkout counter." The ad promised to help parents with ''family advice and a faith-based perspective."

The ad kicked up a little dust from the folks at the United Church of Christ. ABC let James Dobson's group advertise but rejected a UCC ad welcoming all to their church, including gay couples: ''Jesus didn't turn people away. Neither do we." Why was the religious left too controversial but the right wasn't?

I have no doubt why the Christian evangelical group wanted to target the Supernanny market. If there's anything that Dobson's group believes, it's the need for discipline. [...]

Well, they say in politics that whoever frames the problem has won half the battle. Dobson defines the family problem as a permissive world of children run amok who need the tough love of parents who ''dare" to discipline. The success story is that he has followed this authoritarian line directly into conservative politics. Focus on the Family has become one-stop shopping.

George Lakoff, current guru of progressives, has said that if you want to know someone's politics, ask how they raise their children. In Lakoff's vocabulary, Dobson plays the Strict Father to the liberal's Nurturant Parent. He has taken this father from the home to the pulpit to politics where he now blasts judges by saying: ''They're out of control. And I think they need to be reined it."

Spare the rod and spoil the country.

Ms Goodman might want to consider the possibility (likelihood) that when even she enjoys watching the imposition of discipline on unruly kids it's not a matter of sudden framing by Rightwing zealots but of something far deeper in the culture.

MORE (via Robert Schwartz):
Court case over son’s spanking still stings dad: Jury agrees with Newark man: Act was disciplinary, not abusive (Kelly Lecker, May 19, 2005, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH)

Jason Klein won’t deny he was furious when he learned in November that his 13-year-old son had taken liquor from their Newark home to share with his buddies.

He talked to his ex-wife — the boy’s mother — and to his current wife, then came up with a discipline plan. He was going to spank his son.

When his wife took the other kids to church, Klein used part of a wooden cutting board to slap his son’s buttocks four or five times.

"I’ll be the first to admit there were some red marks," Klein said.

He considered the matter over.

But the next day, his son mooned a friend after wrestling practice and the coach saw what he described as black bruises.

By law, the coach was required to contact authorities. Deputy sheriffs and workers from the Licking County Job and Family Services agency visited the Klein home.

"There was no counseling. They didn’t take my son out of the home," he said.

Two months later, however, authorities charged Klein with domestic violence.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 19, 2005 10:44 AM