What has Dobson done for you lately?

I’ve begun doing a little research into James Dobson. First of all, I chatted with the one religious conservative parent I know here in town. This is a fascinating experience. This woman, who happened into my life when I went looking for fellow writers in the neighborhood, is bright, thoughtful, and well-educated, not to mention glamorously beautiful. None of which, I am sorry to admit, conforms to my stereotypes about religious conservatives.

We find surprising points of agreement—including being disturbed by the epidemic of diagnosis of ADHD among little boys and the treatment of it with psychoactive drugs—and then subjects on which we lack a common language and stop short. (Such as the moment when she suggested I read Francis Fukuyama, “a liberal writer.” Say whaa? Or when she said that Dobson starts from the “scientific fact” that boys and girls have very different brain chemistry, “which is undeniable.” Except I do deny it. That is, whenever I hear a specific claim about gender brain differences and the behavior traits that supposedly flow from them, I seem to find that there’s shoddy logic or bad research behind it.)

So here’s what she said about how Dobson helped her in her parenting: She’s the mother of a very physical and active little boy and had been worried about the contrast between her son and the well-behaved, quiet little girls he played with. Dobson, she said, emphasizes how different boys are from girls and claims that boys are typically highly physical. This, she said, was very comforting.

Though she didn’t quite connect this to her own story, she said Dobson starts from what his readers already believe—in rigid gender roles, particularly—and fleshes it out and extends it. Isn’t that what most of us look for in self-help books? Not to have our ideas challenged, nor to have to work too hard with new ideas. And isn’t someone who talks in familiar tones comforting? Surely that’s a big part of why I listen to NPR and not Fox—those NPR people sound sort of the way my people talk (never mind that much of what they actually say is drivel. And Daniel Schorr is a blowhard).

I also went to Dobson’s site. Much of the information there is unobjectionable. The main article currently on their parenting section starts with the comforting words, “All moms experience moments when they feel unequal to the responsibility of motherhood and think: I just can’t do this! I don’t have the strength and wisdom for raising this child.” Ain’t it the truth? The bulleted advice I generally agree with too, from “pass on a love of learning” to “listen to your child.” Amen! The only item I can’t go for is “teach your child to pray” and talk regularly to God. There’s nothing horrible in praying, and the reasons I don’t believe in it are deep and complex (start with the fact I don’t believe there’s a deity out there to make requests to or discuss daily life with). With a little stretching maybe I can translate this to “teach your child to discover a source of values deeper than what people around her happen to think.” Okay, so it’s quite a stretch.

What I’m getting at is that we should try to separate out the cultural differences from the real political differences and in public political conversations be careful of railing against other people’s culture.