Parents scored sit-down interviews with the Obamas and Cindy McCain to talk about their parenting styles. Unfortunately, the interviews are not available online, but they were great reads and I was especially pleased to learn neither family is into corporal punishment. (Take that, James Dobson!)

From the Obama interview, I loved this anecdote about daughter Malia:

What do you think is a parent’s most effective discipline tool?
Michelle: Talking to children. I don’t think you can overestimate how important conversations are from the time kids are even 2 and 3. We made our expectations clear early on, so now we’re not talking about rules or arguing about what they have to do. They know what we expect from them, and they’re eager to please us.
Barack: Now, granted, they are not teenagers, so we don’t want to sound like, “Well, aren’t we the clever parents?” and then you talk to us four years from now….

Speaking of teenagers, there’s a lot of pressure on young girls to behave like teenagers—even when they’re as young as Malia and Sasha.
Barack: We’ve talked about that too. And the interesting thing about having those conversations early on is that kids pick up on your values. Now Malia will hear something on the radio or on television and she’ll be the one to say, “I think that is inappropriate.”
Michelle: The other day she told me, “If there are little kids in the room and somebody says a bad word, I usually go ‘beep!’ over it.”

While I may not agree with her husband’s politics, I do admire Cindy McCain as a mother. Like the interview, I got the impression that she has done a lot of parenting solo. I especially admire her strength surrounding the adoption and surgeries of her daughter Bridget.