JUST WHAT IS A `LIBERAL' THESE DAYS?

Byline: ELEANOR HAMMER

THE current debate about whether Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., is really a liberal has made me consider how difficult it is to draw that line between ``liberal'' and ``conservative.'' While some liberal Democrats want to defeat him for his continuing support of the war in Iraq, I confess that I, too, have strayed from the liberal label at times.

I confirmed my Indiana parents' suspicions about my liberal leanings when my husband and I fled with our sons from conservative Indianapolis to more liberal Los Angeles in 1951. From that distance they could only guess at our new-fangled, if not positively dangerous, ideas about child-rearing.

But they visited a few times and the results of our theories could not be concealed. A 3-year-old boy who still poops in his pants is hard to ignore. Patience, advised Dr. Spock. Children will train themselves eventually. He didn't say how long ``eventually'' might be.

When our boys were very young -- 9, 4 and 2 -- we were living in a new tract home in Reseda, when the San Fernando Valley was growing fast. We found a cooperative nursery school in Woodland Hills that offered stay-at-home moms the priceless treasure of four free mornings a week in exchange for one morning of helping out and carpooling the children. My two youngest fit right in.

But I soon realized that the parents in the group did not agree on some basic principles of child-rearing.

The young, male director seldom said ``no,'' and if the children tired of an activity and wanted another set of toys, or declined the offer of a nap, that was fine with him. Some of the mothers disagreed with him, and I had a few qualms myself.

In fact, the school was in danger of splitting into two factions: the liberals and the conservatives. Naturally I expected to be part of the liberal group. But the actual breaking up came from an unexpected issue: Should the boys be restrained from peeing in the paint pots?

The conservatives were outraged that the behavior in question had happened at all, and that allowing it was even under discussion. The liberals answered that it didn't hurt the paint, and that in any event the little boys would outgrow such behavior. Eventually.

At a parents meeting called to decide the issue, inside my head I could hear the voice of my mother: Little boys are doing what? And you are allowing it?

To my utter surprise, I found myself lined up with the conservatives. We departed that group for another co-op nursery school with more restrictions for little boys and considerably more structure in the activities.

About this time my husband and I enrolled in a discussion group organized by the UCLA Extension division, which, as it turned out, again required me to consider just how liberal I really was. The course was called ``Ways of Mankind,'' and we liked to think that it was an anthropology seminar. We studied readings from leading scholars, such as Margaret Mead, and examined how different cultural groups had answered the same basic questions.

The readings were neutral: No tribe was ``right'' or ``wrong'' in its choices. One tribe practiced cannibalism, believing that the souls of the eaten enemy would spiritually enrich the victorious eaters.

In the midst of discussing this tribe, I again heard my mother's voice: Eating people is wrong.

I did not say this aloud, although I have often wondered what the group's reaction would have been. I might not have been the only conservative in the room. Or is it conservative to think that eating people is wrong?

Perhaps before the Connecticut primary election, the senator might reveal his liberal or conservative leanings in some new ways. What would he have done if his sons, at age 3, wanted to pee in the paint pots at nursery school? And when exactly is cannibalism politically correct?