Posted on 11/25/2002 7:00:48 AM PST by Dutchgirl
I recently had a funny exchange with a person in the sales division of the company that manufactured my once-trustworthy laptop. I have to share it with the class.
I called the company in question to order a replacement part and in the course of confirming that I am the proper owner, the saleswoman asked, "What is the Center for Affirmative Parenting?"
"I write books and give seminars on raising children," I answered. That made her happy, because, she told me, she's having problems with her sons, ages 4 and 3. Specifically, they talk back to her. They tell her, flatly, that they aren't going to obey, that she's not their boss, etc.
"Now," she explained, "I'm trying to raise them to feel they can always speak freely to me."
"Then you're doing a great job!" I exclaimed.
"I am?" she responded, somewhat puzzled.
"Yes, you are," I said. "They obviously feel they have complete permission to speak freely to you."
"But that's not the kind of free speech I mean," she said. "I want them to obey me, not disrespect me."
"Well, I'm sorry to tell you, but you can't have it both ways."
This mom, like many of today's parents, is trying to put the cart before the horse. In this case, the cart is a "democratic" parent-child relationship; the horse is a relationship in which the child does what he is told because he is told, and the parent tells, not asks.
Put another way, a child will not appreciate the fruits of democracy, one of which is freedom of speech, unless he has not had access to said fruits for a period of time sufficient to properly steep such appreciation. The child who is given freedom prematurely will abuse it.
In this mom's case, her children are quickly turning into tyrants. How ironic! She gives freedom, and they, in turn, demand entitlement. Such is the sorry state of child rearing in America, where post-modern psychobabble, not common sense, holds sway.
I told a father recently that the way to assure the trustworthiness of a child during the teen years is to insist upon blind obedience when the child is young and gradually loosen the restraints upon "free thinking" as the child approaches adolescence. This all but insures that the teenager will impose sufficient restraints upon his own speech and behavior.
"Oh," the fellow said, "I don't feel comfortable with that." I felt like telling him it wasn't about him. It was about his child. And it wasn't a matter of what he did and did not feel "comfortable" doing. It was a matter of his child's best interests.
I didn't say any of this, of course. I just nodded my head. I understand. I really do. Parenting in America is a fairy tale in which childhood, long imprisoned in the dank Dungeons of Dysfunctionality, is being rescued by legions of caring, compassionate parents who want their children to express themselves freely, which they end up doing, to the detriment of all.
Never mind. The important thing is that each parent discovers a style of parenting that is right for him/her. After all, only the benighted cling stubbornly to unchanging child rearing principles. "I would never have spoken to my parents the way my children sometimes speak to me," a 40-something mom recently remarked, looking like she was about to cry.
That's not exactly right. She would indeed have spoken to her parents in a disrespectful fashion if they had given her license to do so. But they did not. They did not give her free speech prematurely; therefore, she was not a child-tyrant. She was well-mannered, respectful, and obedient.
And thus when the time came for her to enjoy free speech, she did not abuse the privilege. Sadly, many of today's children never enjoy free speech. They've always had it. What's there to enjoy? Entitlements, furthermore, always breed contempt for those who pay the bills.
The parent must start as tyrants to end as a liberators. Most parents have it backwards.
hank
But most of what they are they were born with. They are as different from each other as if they were from diffferent countries and cultures.
Also, I attribute many of my own positive attributes to the very good "negative example" that my drunkard father set as I was growing up.
Accordingly, I have presented myself as a flawed person to my kids (though not nearly as flawed as my own father was to me). This means that any great things they achieved came from within themselves, rather than from trying to measure up to any standard I set. In essence "they owned their goodness", and as a result cannot rebel against it.
And Dad gets to go to Hooters every once in an while!
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