You don’t need me to tell you that parenting is tough; that rearing a child is like climbing Mount Everest (except with more germs); that rearing a child is like carrying a glass of water, filled to the very brim, across three football fields (while dodging linemen). Point is: You’re going to spill some water.
Every parent slips. No one has a perfect free-throw percentage. Mistakes are bound to be made. You can only hope that your child grows up on the opposite path of a serial killer (okay, we’re being a bit extreme here). But, as a parent, you want your child to become a top- tier athlete, or an honored poet, or a wealthy entrepreneur, or an award- winning chef/ actor/ painter/ sculptor/ dog- whisperer (or, for the ambitious parents, all of the above).
Every parent, for the most part, has flipped through parenting books in search of the answers to the infinite number of questions bouncing about in his/ her head: “Should I only feed my kids organic?” or “At what age should I allow my child to start dating?” or “Is it normal for my child to have a lisp?”
These questions have somewhat been answered: “Processed food isn’t as good for growing children” and “Age 17? Plus, you should allow your child to choose his/ her mate, but you should always give them ‘the talk’ ” and “Yes, there is nothing wrong with a lisp.”
But the age-old question (the one that trumps them all) remains and doesn’t seem to be budging anytime soon:
What makes someone a bad parent?
Forty- four year old New Jerseyan, Patricia Krentcil took her 5- year- old daughter to the tanning salon, where the youngster was placed into a tanning booth. She would later suffer from burns.
You and I and all of the other parents on Earth can attest that there is no single answer for such a gigantic question. But we can, however, narrow it down to one heated, highly- disputed, controversial topic:
Discipline .
It all boils down to discipline, some people argue. Do you beat your kids? Or is that now considered barbaric/ radically old- fashioned? Or is beating your misbehaving child, as Pastor and author Michael Pearl would say, a natural, parental instinct?
In one of his many books, How to Train a Child (1994), Pearl advises parents to start physically disciplining their child when the child is in the infant stage:
“One particularly painful experience,” Pearl writes, “of nursing mothers is the biting baby. My wife did not waste time finding a cure. When the baby bit, she pulled its hair (an alternative has to be sought for bald- headed babies). Understand, the baby is not being punished, just conditioned.”
Pearl’s manifesto on spanking.
As you would expect, Pearl’s wisdom was (and is) thought to be an outrage by many protesting moms and dads. Pearl’s words were even blamed for multiple cases where parents killed their children by overexerting physical force (while, supposably, incorporating Pearl’s parental advice).
We’re so much bigger than them. It just doesn’t seem logical, some may argue, to use physical (or even vocal) force. Hitting children is a sensitive topic, where lots of people will shake their heads disapprovingly as Pastor Pearl advises you to spank your kids.
The very mention of raising a hand to a child may sound, to some, like the most villainous act achievable by anyone.
Kid on strike against striking kids (sourced from http://yougov.co.uk/news)
While, to others, it may seem like an important (or perhaps the most important) procedure in a child’s development. But how strict can a parent be without crossing the fine line between “Discipline” and “Abuse?” Are there certain parts of the body that we, as responsible, loving parents, should target when resorting to physical discipline? The thigh? The calf? The forearm? Or do we blindly swing until they get the message?
Of course, we all love our kids. We would never do anything to harm them. And we, as parents, would love to give them the entire world. In fact, we practically do. Elizabeth Kolbert, in an article for the New Yorker entitled “Spoiled Rotten: Why do kids rule the roost?”, says,
“…contemporary American kids may represent the most indulged young people in the history of the world. It’s not just that they’ve been given unprecedented amounts of stuff–clothes, toys, cameras, skis, computers, televisions, cell phones, PlayStations, iPods. (The market for Burberry Baby and other forms of kiddie “couture” has reportedly been growing by ten percent a year.) They’ve also been granted unprecedented authority.”
We all want to give our kids the entire world. But gift wrapping this thing might be a problem.
Are we bad parents if we provide our children with the latest technological wonders? Are we wrong for wanting them to have the very best? The answer may be, shockingly, yes. By allowing our children to have access to MP3 players, flashy computers, and game consoles, we’re training them not to use time, but to pass it. Essentially, we’re training our kids to fight boredom. And so, we’re rearing a society of boredom- fighters. Whether or not that’s a good thing is up to you to decide.
“They’ve also been granted unprecedented
authority,” Kolbert writes.
Is this true? Have we allowed our kids to rule the house? The answer, again, might be yes.
America is home to the most spoiled children in the
world.
Take a second. Digest that.
American children are, for the most part, given everything. Remember, there are indigenous tribes out there that require their children to start hunting at the age of five. American children, on the other hand, have a hard time preparing their own dinner, let alone submit and eat the broccoli that lies inside it.
Bon appetite.
Remember, there are places in the world where children start working in factories at a tender age (of course, this should never be allowed). American children, on the other hand, have a hard time subsisting on their free allowance.
Now, I’m not saying that we should deprive our children and force them to fend for themselves. I’m suggesting that we should be moderate and resist being so frivolous when it comes to giving into our kids’ demands.
When we allow them to have so much authority, they grow up to depend on it for survival. They grow up to be snobby brats, who think the world revolves around their precious little broccoli-hating existence. Our generosity, as parents, is counter productive. As a result, our children are ill- equipped for the “real” world.
And what’s worse, some kids learn to depend on technology rather than on their own intellectual gifts. But, I digress.
The question here isn’t how much or how little we should give our kids, but is…
“Are we properly preparing our kids for this crazy
world of ours?”
In my opinion, a bad parent raises their kids in such a way as to condone a lack of individual, self- sufficiency. In other words…
a bad parent raises another bad parent.
So instead of giving our children everything, maybe we should hold back. Maybe we should learn to say “no”; maybe we should instruct our kids at an early age to clean, to cook, to do the laundry, to use their hands for something bigger than themselves (all under adult supervision, of course).
The problem is that we don’t teach self- sufficiency (not enough as a collective whole, at least). As a nation, we need to stop spoiling our children.
We need to stop preparing the world for our kids,
and we need to start preparing our kids for the
world.
But we should never forget that kids will be kids. They’re only tadpoles frolicking in their little pond. Let them enjoy it.
Meanwhile, we should always keep in mind that the world is a giant ocean. And it’s our responsibility, as adults, to teach our kids how to swim.
Otherwise, everything will be spoiled (especially the broccoli).
