Saturday, January 16, 2010
Breeding Brats
My computer's internet home page is set to BabyCenter. When I was pregnant (over 2 years ago, now) it was Brian's bible. He'd be on there every day reading up on what to expect with the pregnancy, what was happening inside my body that week, etc. It has a feature whereby you can input your baby's due date and it does a sort of countdown for you, and likens your growing fetus to varying sized produce as the weeks go on. After Lily was born, I liked to go on there because it still tracked her birthday (now in a count-up sort of way), and gave me updates as to appropriate developmental milestones and the like. I leave it my home screen because there's good information for parents on there with catchy headlines.
As I booted up the computer a few days ago, one such headline caught my eye. While I cannot recall the headline, the article was about 2-year-old behavior and how to handle tantrums. There was something about a kid starting to yell in the market, and the advice was to warn the toddler that if this type of behavior continues, you'll have to take him home and come shop without him. Another suggestion was to offer to let your toddler pick a cereal of his choice if he behaves.
It occurred to me reading this (and other articles in the past) that this new-aged soft-on-crime/bribery and over-indulgence movement is probably the reason that kids are so horrible today. While I hardly endorse beating one's child, there's only so much time-outs can do. I can't keep track of how many times I've remarked with a friend or Brian that "I would never have even THOUGHT to talk that way to my parents!" or "I would've gotten my ass beat if I did XYZ!"
Kids today are out of control. I mean that. I'm not necessarily talking about young ones (though some of them are definitely ridiculous--have you SEEN SuperNanny?!) but teenagers are complete asses. There's no respect for adults, for authority, for teachers. Parents won't allow anyone but themselves to discipline their kids, but THEY don't do any disciplining either. For this reason, teens come to school and talk back, think it's appropriate to try to go into my desk to retrieve a hackey-sack that was confiscated during use in class, and say things like, "What do you think that proves?"
When I was growing up, I got in trouble when I was bad. I was smacked on occasion. I got my hair pulled if I talked back. I had all of my toys--all of them--confiscated one summer when I was young (don't recall what I did, but do recall getting some of them back when I got chicken pox). In early time-out fashion, before time-outs existed as such, I got sent into the dining room corner (where there was NOTHING to do) for other infractions. But I never got grounded because I didn't need to. I usually learned from my mistakes. When I had any issues with teachers at school (which was rarely, but did happen a couple of times) my parents made me accept the punishment. Again, it was something that I learned from. When I did poorly on a test or paper after not studying or spending enough time on it, my parents didn't call the school and complain to the teacher about it and insist that it be changed. I got the crap grade I deserved and had to work harder next time to make up for the damage I'd caused.
I like my parents. I liked them when I was growing up. I didn't feel under-supported. If there was a genuine injustice done to me, they'd go to bat for me. But if it was something that I'd played a part in, they'd make me take my lumps.
More parents need to do that.
The problem today is that parents aren't doing that. They let their kids run the show. They reward their kids for every single thing they do, so that kids come to expect some kind of payment (in the form of a gift or a grade or other reward) for everything they do. There is very little doing out of the goodness of one's heart, or doing to do good. It's a what's-in-it-for-me mentality; if the reward doesn't seem good enough, they won't do it. When a kid does screw up, the parents are overly protective and will get the kid out of trouble--big or small. There's no accountability on the kid. The kid is never made to learn from even the littlest mistake. I had chores that were part of living at my house; I raised money for MS research; I had to serve my punishments when they came--I turned out ok. It didn't kill me, but taught me.
Parents today are trying to be friends with their kids. They don't hit anymore, ever. It's frowned upon as though any slap is a beating. It's taboo. I even feel strangely writing about it on here because part of me thinks someone is going to say, "Does that mean she hits Lily? Poor kid! What a violent lady!" In fact, I don't hit Lily. But it isn't because I think it's morally wrong. It's because I don't think she's done anything to deserve a smack. When she does, I'll probably smack her. The point is, while I'm not looking forward to it, I'm not ruling it out. I received the occasional smack--I turned out ok. It didn't kill me, but taught me.
I think about how my parents raised me and about how I turned out. I think about how my parents' parents raised them, and how they turned out. We're all fine! There was so much less in the way of how-to parenting manuals back then, and yet we're all ok and even have good relationships with our parents. The recent surge of studies and information and so on is amazing. The surge of bratty, unruly, disrespectful kids is also amazing. I'm thinking it isn't a coincidence. I'm thinking that this is a case where sometimes the old way is, in fact, better to a degree. Yes, we all want well-rounded, self-actualized, successful, happy kids. But the new techniques and recommendations are forcing kids to be adults earlier (since we aren't being the adults!), and letting kids make the call on things that should be a parent's call. Parents are being their kids' friends instead of their parents. They're wussing out when they should be stepping up.
And in the process, they're breeding a disgusting brood of insolent, unappreciative, selfish brats.
Wow. Reading all this stuff... Natalie is brilliant and I can empathize with her.
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