The CivicScience family is very proud to announce that our extended family has just grown: two healthy little girls were born this week, making first-time fathers of two members of our team. In honor of these new additions, we’d like to share some baby and parent-themed insights that have been incubating in our InsightStore™ over the past year:

What is your parental status?

Over the past year, this question collected over 644,000 responses.

  • 33% of respondents are parents, while 25% are both parents and grandparents.
  • Those who answered they are parents (not grandparents) were more likely to say they own one or more dogs or they own one or more cats and dogs. People who are not parents are more likely to own cats.
  • When crossed with one of our money management questions, we found parents are more likely to save 1%-10% of their monthly income, while non-parents are 62% more likely to save more than 20% of their income than parents.
  • People who are parents are 38% more likely than non-parents to primarily watch TV programming via DVR than live or online streaming. (You can read more about this in a recent blog we did on this topic.)

Are you your parents’ favorite child?

  • Most people (61% of 14,000 responses) said No.
  • Who answered Yes? They are more likely to make over $150K per year and live in the U.S. West. Another segment is those aged under 18 are more likely to say yes, too.
  • People who answered No are slightly more likely to say they are currently unhappy overall and also unhappy in their job.

How many siblings do you have?

  • Top-line results of 28,000 responses put 1 sibling in the lead at 30% of responses.
  • 12% are an only child.
  • Smokers are more likely to come from homes with 4 or more siblings.

Do you think child beauty pageants should be banned?

  • Most of the 40,000+ respondents to this question say Yes (at 63%).
  • Who wants them to end? There are no major demographic distinctions, other than as people get older, they are more likely to say Yes. Parental status didn’t factor in at all.
  • Politically, Republicans were only slightly more likely to say No.
  • People who watch music & entertainment TV programs more than other genres are more likely to say Yes than other genres fans.
  • People who watch more reality TV are more likely to say No than other genre fans.
  • 100% of the parents at CivicScience are certain our children would win.

Celebrity Fathers

Okay, so admittedly, this question and the next few were written out of fun to engage people in our polls. Nearly 5,000 respondents answered a poll asking them to select between Charlie Sheen, Joe Jackson, Michael Lohan, and Bobbie Brown as the worst celebrity father.

  • Top-line results “winner” is Joe Jackson at 35%.
  • Michael Lohan and Charlie Sheen are a close call between 25% and 26%.

Another question asked about 1,200 people that if they could replace their father with one of these celebrities – Mel Gibson, Charlie Sheen, Mike Tyson, Danny Bonaduce, Gary Busey – who would they choose?

  • Mel Gibson led with 43% of responses, yet Charlie Sheen was second-place choice with 27% of responses.
  • People aged 55 to 64 were more likely to choose Mel and Gary Busey.
  • Danny Bonaduce comes in last with 9%.
  • Men were more likely to choose Charlie Sheen over women.  (Probably no surprise there.)

If you could be a celebrity baby, which mother would you prefer to have?

The answer choices for our little more than 2,000 respondents were: Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Kim Kardashian, Farrah Abraham, or Miley Cyrus.

  • In our top-line results, Britney Spears led the pack with 49% of responses. Britney’s hypothetical children were more likely to be men, make $50-75K per year, and live in the US Midwest.
  • Lindsay Lohan received the least responses at 2%.
  • Women were almost 2X as likely to pick Kim Kardashian.
  • Men were almost 3X as likely to pick Farrah Abraham. We don’t want to touch this one.

So there you have it… some amusing insights to close out your week and to commemorate the arrival of our new CivicScience babies.

We also invite you to read a recent article in the Huffington Post penned by one of our business partners, Anzalone Liszt Grove Research, called “Do Obama Mamas Make Democratic Babies?” (May 8, 2014). It’s a look at parental influence on political leanings, using CivicScience data.