This brilliant statement comes from an op-ed in the WSJ's Opinion Journal that Glenn Reynolds wrote about the fact that parenting is very tiring nowadays, because it has more responsibility — and responsibility of a type that often diminishes rewards:
You're responsible for your kids in ways previous generations weren't, but your ability to discipline them is much reduced; and as my wife, a forensic psychologist, notes, the bad kids know that they can cow most adults by threatening to call 911 and make a bogus abuse charge. And forget disciplining your child, even with a harsh word, in a public place. At the very least, if you do you'll be looked on not as a virtuous parent helping to preserve the social fabric, but as that worst of all sinners in contemporary American culture: a meanie.
I certainly know that my kids, who are nice, bright kids, are still infinitely less pleasant to be around than my peers and I were because they're not interested in carrots, and society has deprived me of sticks.
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Funny thing. When I was growing up the “bad” kids had their parents’ numbers just about as much as they do today – and those of us who were “good” kids were good precisely because our parents raised us properly.
And for the record…no sticks were harmed in the making of this Yak.
A society is determined by the basic unit, the family, as Confucius said. How you treat your families is how you treat other nations and foreign policy affairs.
I am the meanest mom and proud of it! I require that my girls tell me where they are going, who they are with and if I don’t know the parents…forget going to the party! But the other side of it is the number of times people have told me what nice and helpful girls I have!
I liked what Yak said; I feel the same way, as delighted as I am with my three Incredible Daughters. Also a problem is the aggressiveness of the PC-ers’ intervention. I remember when I.D. #1 was a toddler — 17 years ago — my wife experienced such an incident. She was very concerned about child theft and I.D #1 was a wanderer, so she bought a rainbow colored “leash.” Very cute. One end velcroed to I.D.#1’s little wrist, the other to Mom’s. Merrily they went to the mall, only to be confronted by PC Mom who yelled at my wife in public, accusing her of child cruelty. It’s off limits to yell at your kids, but perfectly fine to yell at another Mom — add that to your PC handbook!
Our daughter (now 26) has told us that even while she was railing at us for the restrictions, she felt safer because we set limits for her and consistentlyh enforced them. She was able to tell friends who suggested things she did NOT want to do that she couldn’t because her folks would kill her (hyperbole alert!), delivering her of the need to take a courageous stand against her peers.
The payoff for parents is long-term. Here is Laura’s Mother’s Day tribute: http://camacho.tv/index.php/weblog/comments/mama/
Considering what the society teaches in schools, wants taught in schools, and allows in public . . . well, society’s not qualified to tell me anything.
I think if you teach your daughters and sons how to kick people’s arse, they can use that physical intimidation to explaining why they do as they do. It is after all a self-confidence problem. And the best way to improve self-confidence is to run them through obstacles and fights, until they start winning consistently.
There is a limit to how much self-confidence you can give someone by talking to him. By the core of self-esteem comes from the person doing things for himself. He has to know and BELIEVE that it was him, and only him(her) that accomplished X (standing up, winning, stopping intimidation, etc).
What Earl described is interesting, cause it is almost like how privates behave in the US military. “uh, the gunny told me to get over here and do this”. “Sir, my orders tell me to do this, please get out of my way”.
You always hear about the high ranking general staff officer coming in and being harassed by the “guard following his orders”. There are a lot of variations on that.