Well...

I agree completely with the idea of a child having the ideals and beliefs of his or hers parents instilled in them. I personally have seen this firsthand, and experienced it, as I'm sure many of us could say. People believe what their family believes. If you find an old man who is a strong democrat, chances are, he's got two or three generations of family that will back him up. It doesn't matter if the parents do it intentionally or not, what you grow up around will be what you naturally latch on to. It takes a great deal of strength and separation from this influence for a person to break away from this mold, which we have all observed in someone's life. A kid goes off to college, doesn't have to go to church every Sunday, and comes home an atheist just in time for Christmas break. (Ho, ho, ho...) Anyways, I guess what it all comes down to is how much effort parents put into remaining unbiased in their beliefs around their kids. However, most all of them don't put any effort into this, and why should they? It is their own house, they can believe and discuss whatever they want in the privacy of their own walls, taken out by a faulty loan from a crashing bank. In this one place they don't have to worry about being politically correct, or making a good impression on their bosses. But, perhaps the most impressionable people in their lives catch every word, and that may or may not be such a good thing after all.