I have four girls, no boys. After they have clogged the toilet for the umpteeth time I told them plunging the toilet is not really a "mans" job and they can proceed to take advantage of their liberation and do it themselves.

Three sons, one daughter, all liberal Democrats. Maybe being in a single parent household made a difference. They saw Mom doing traditional male chores and all the kids took turns taking out the trash, doing yard work, washing dishes, cleaning floors and helping out with younger siblings. Everyone cleaned their own rooms and did their own laundry. It was an equal opportunity household.

I try to mix it up too. Tell my girls not to "depend on a man". Not hard to do since I am the only male out of a household of six.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]I'm the eldest of my siblings, the only female, and the only liberal.

One of my brothers is a rabid Libertarian and the others are all political/social conservatives. Not sure why it turned out that way, but there it is.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]My job was to "take care of the boys," spanning a dozen years in age range. I was nearly 14 when the youngest was born, and carried him around on my hip so continually that strangers actually asked if he was mine.

I changed their diapers, played with them after school, corralled them in the evenings, put them to bed, and got up with them when they wandered or cried at night.

Except for hanging out the laundry, I was very rarely expected to do any household chores. Mom did all those, and I viewed them as punishment.

Weird.

This guy who was the eldest of 4 with 3 sisters is not and never has been politically conservative. At least 2 of my sisters are more in line with being conservative more than me.

And this guy had to do the dishes, vacuum, clean up, as well as mow the lawn and shovel snow. Even go with my father during some summers and help him measure farm fields.

The men have a self-selection bias. If they're politically conservative, they're probably not here (and if they were, they wouldn't say).

The women, on the other hand, are unlikely to have self-selected based on the political leanings of any male siblings they were raised with.

Of course, we're still lacking a control group.

It seems to me this may be a very localized outcome. If not a particular area in the US, then just the US itself.

my brother doesn't.

Odd.

My brother is seven years older than me. my sisters 10 and 13 years older, respectively.

Yet my brother is mr. conservative.

I am left of liberal and so are my sisters.

my dad was a union member conservative.

my brother was the golden child. could do no wrong.

me and my sisters well, not so much.

My mom, liberal.

By their "findings" I should be a Teabagger.

I have four sisters.
No brothers.

We had to vacuum and dust our own rooms, and put away our laundry. Then again, my working mom was ahead of her time

1 hp Lawn Boy aluminum push mower. We both took turns after one would tire. There may have been a little competition in endurance, but it was more about finishing a weekend chore, and neither of us wanted to spend an entire weekend mowing.

I have come to abhor large lawns. Enough green for a badminton court is all I'll ever need

I did however become the mechanic and carpenter.

Middle class which I grew up in shared equal work chores from washing dishes, cleaning bathrooms, cooking and even sewing. Yard work was equal as well and washing cars. Heck my brother and husband are more domestic than me and they use coupons - LOL

As to party affiliates, both hubby and brother are liberals as am I.

Growing up, I didn't realize it then but our house was very apolitical. Only after I moved out on my own did I pay attention to politics. While I was a conservative through my 20's and 30's, I dropped that ideology like a hot potato.

So much for that study.

I have a twin brother and as a person he is conservative ( some would call it shy) but politically he's a major liberal.

I think guys with older sister(s) are even more bent to the right. Must guys are protective and sheltering of younger siblings.

This study just shows that a bunch of sick puppies populates the GOP.

But I am the eldest of four children, with the two youngest being sisters. My brother and I are close together in age and my sisters are close to one another in age, but the two groups were significantly spaced-out, leaving me twelve years older than the youngest.

I really have doubts about how effective any study like this can be. There are so many factors that can affect personality that I would expect it to be hard to apply adequate controls in any study to be able to consider all of the potentially relevant points. I think the whole thing may be a bit dodgy. But I am also an eldest child male who is supposedly more to the left than most politicians, per Political Compass. Umm.

myself, were all younger brothers of older sisters and all lean left. Perhaps a coincidence.

I would think boys with older sisters would be more likely to be conservative because society tells them that boys are supposed to be better than girls and that spending most of their childhood living with a girl or two who were better at sports, more advanced in school, able to do everything first, etc. would breed the kind of petty resentment that makes men want to exert control over others.

And they're lazy, privileged, and ignorant. That seems to be the gist.

and no brothers.I,m as liberal as they get.

Interesting.

The boys with whom I grew up gathered firewood, shoveled snow, put in hay, mowed the lawn, washed the cars and took out the garbage. What the author appears to be saying is that girls are no more or less likely to do these kinds of male-stereotyped household chores regardless of whether they have sisters or brothers.

In other words, boys who don't have sisters at home will do both kinds of chores, but girls who don't have brothers at home still do only the inside chores.

I mowed the yard, took out the garbage, got the firewood, helped with hay, helped with farm work. I had to do the inside chores too. Generally though, I was given some choice in the matter. My brother and I were given a list of chores and we divvied it up between us. When given the choice, I always chose to work outside. My brother often picked the inside chores - dishes, laundry, etc. We both equally hated cleaning the bathroom and vacuuming so we had to trade off there.

There were a couple of chores that my brother had to do that I wasn't allowed to do. When it came time to cut tobacco my dad insisted that I didn't have the upper body strength to do it (I suspect he was really more worried about me cutting off a limb since I'm kind of a klutz). And when it came time to hang the tobacco in the barn, I was never given the job of working in the rafters because he said I wasn't big enough.

Most girls I know had to do the "manly chores" too.

I knew quite a few guys that didn't do anything and expected their mothers or sisters to be at their beck and call. I hope they eventually got a reality check. I'm sure there are women out there like that too, I just don't know that many.

but one female cousin who I was close in age to and around for about 8 years. She is a Glen Beck level wacko, but I still love her. Her worthless husband abandoned her and her two wonderful daughters.

. . . I am the youngest of five: three sisters and a brother, in that order (descending in age). We're all over the map politically. The oldest, my eldest sister, and I occupy the family's left political flank. Second oldest, also a sister, has gone over the cliff into tea party madness, third and fourth (sister and brother), are conservative, but not insanely so.

to quote from one of my favorite movies.

This "study" was performed by "Healy, an associate professor of economics at LMU and Mahotra, an associate business professor at Stanford" and we expect to offer it some credibility? Perhaps their mindset lead the to their conclusions. Any chance of seeing a study by real social scientists?

I'd like to see a few more variables besides sibling genders in the mix before drawing a conclusion as to the cause of political leanings.

Smashes that theory.

I have two younger sisters. Maybe them being gay made me question my own beliefs and attitudes.

I just never understood how he could be. We were raised by a single mom in the 70's and 80's. my husband is a wonderful liberal. He is an Army officer, raise by republican parents (so republican that his grandpa was into local politics), with a sister and brother.

Who knows....

The sisters are the conservatives , I'm the left wing pinko

The boys are liberal, the girls MUCH more conservative. The in house chores were supposed to be equally shared, the outdoor chores fell to me. (My little brother got away with murder, my older and younger sister didn't have to do much) If I ever did complain that my sisters were not pulling their weight, I got "It's different for girls."

Two of the three girls are typical kids who care not to do work around the house. TV is much more fun.
The middle child likes to help out. She cuts the grass without even being asked...where did I go wrong with her

and am as liberal as can be

growing up. All three of us are pretty far to the left.

This seems to contradict that.

Women!

Thank goodness!

In a related study, conservative males with sisters respond to more questionnaires than other identified groups.

If a sibling is either a sociopath or psychopath, they will vote cancervative.

If a sibling was hurt by the other sibling, they will vote liberal.

Uh huh ....

and that's where it comes from. parents who treat their kids equally and encourage them to do what they want shouldn't have this problem.

no INDEED

I'm not convinced it counts for much.

I'm quite to the left of all of them and no, household chores are not "women's work"

One of the changes over the last 40 or so years is the increase number of adults living without partners. Thus in many such households with children the parent who has the child has to do both of the traditional roles of Mother and Father. Thus traditional roles are less important to such families for someone has to do them.

On the other hand families with both Mother and Father in the same household tend to be more stable, not only in relationships but income. Thus mothers and fathers can do traditional roles of Mother and Father if they want. Given the the difference is only 15%, that tendency could be explained by the more stable environment that occurs when mother and father live together (Another way to look at it is when Mother and Father are able to live together it is due to the fact they have a more stable economic situation, thus they can afford to be more conservative).

Notice the article does not mention income. Remember when income are higher, it is easier for families to be stable. Thus what we may be seeing is such the affect of higher income, i.e. lower income families can not afford to be sexists, but higher income families, when it comes to boys, can afford to be sexist.

In simple terms we may be seeing the effect of the drop in income of the last 40 years more then anything else.

That's all my dad heard from his 4 sisters while he was being raised, but he not only grew up to be a lifelong Democrat, he was very liberal and broad minded for his time.

So, put that in your pipe and smoke it!!!

Democrat here. My sister, 12 years younger, was a staunch Democrat in college. Not sure what she is now. Her husband is a rabid Repub. Both my sons voted Democrat, one in two elections now, and my daughter will most likely be a Democrat too, but as a 14 year old, she's not following politics very much at this stage in life. But she does know why our family is Democratic....

But I can see that boys in families where the girls had to help with chores and the boys didn't would grow up thinking that that's the way it's supposed to be.

I once had a roommate who grew up with five brothers. She was the only girl and the only child in the family who had to do household chores: washing dishes, doing laundry, general cleaning. The boys took off after dinner to do whatever they wanted, while she had to wash the dishes and clean the kitchen.

Oldest is a teabagger; sane, rational one is a flaming liberal.

Hey, I tried!