Lakoff's framing of the models of Republican/conservative versus Democratic/liberal through different parenting models is useful, but I think it is still a bit weak as a frame.
I would just subtly tweak Lakoff's "nurturant parent" phrase to "nurturant parents". This does a number of subtle things which I outline below the fold. I'd be interested in your thoughts.
Some advantages of "parents" versus "parent":
- It gets away from the problem of the "flip-side" of "strict father" being interpreted as "permissive mommy".
- Lakoff tries to have gender neutrality in his "nurturant" model phrase, but fails because many people map the "flip-side" of "father" as "mother" in their minds anyway, regardless of the fact that "parent" could be either gender. By using the plural "parents", it provides a more natural "flip-side" mapping, providing gender neutrality without seeming an artificial and dishonest avoidance of the word "mother".
- It includes the notion of "cooperation" as well as "nurturing". By counter-posing "strict father" with "nurturing parents" (plural) rather than "nurturing parent" (singular), it includes the implication that the "father" in this case is not only "strict", but "dominating" and "uncooperative" in contrast to the "parents" working together cooperatively to nurture. The cooperative, nurturing parents (the plural framed by the listener) also provides a frame around the "conservative" model of "the best environment for a child to be raised is by both a mother and a father" by letting the listener map in their own biases to the advantage of our frame. Comparatively, "strict father" just doesn't sound like a positive model to either conservatives or liberals.
- It avoids the singular "parent" (when counter-posed with "father") = "single mother" = "undisciplined" = "welfare mother" = "liberal" implication, as the word "parents" doesn't contain this mapping implication.
- Because the words "parents" is gender ambiguous, it can subtly include same-sex parents within its frame. The listener provides their own mapping biases into the frame, which is the best function of well-constructed frames (as long as the mapping is not negative, which in this case it will not be.)
- Because the word "parents" is number ambiguous (i.e., are we talking about a pair of parents, or all parents collectively, or one or more of all parents collectively?), it can subtly include the notion of the "village" of "nurturing parents", which may include single parents within its population.
I think we win on all counts with this subtle change.
Your thoughts?