Liberal Parents Breeding A Generation Of Little Horrors
18 06 2007At last. Someone has come out and said it. Why has it taken so long?
This might seem like a scene from your worst nightmare but, as they say, the future is here. It’s kid-shaped. A future of rude, undisciplined, frankly nasty little brats who are well aware of their “rights” and how to exercise them. Their parents are too afraid to say “boo” to them, let alone discipline them. There is no doubt who is in charge.
In the UK (and to some extent even in Canada) daring to instill anything remotely resembling discipline in your kids is a sure way to get frog-marched down to the local nick. And it’ll have been the fruit of your loins who will probably have reported you. In Canada, they tell you (and you could be a parent or a teacher) they’ll ring Child Services. And they can. In the UK it’s Social Services.
But first, the little dahlings will tell you where to get off. And the parents will cringe, try to appease, to reason with their beloved offspring, too afraid to give them a good talking to.
OK. So parenting is no cakewalk. We know. That’s why I am childfree. We know that a parent will resignedly say “Well, it’s all right for you, you should try raising kids and see how easy it is to control them.”
Um, no. They are yours, you brought them into the world and we are never allowed to forget it since you keep telling us what a mistake we’ve made by not following your example and reproducing. YOU are responsible for controlling them, for bringing them up to be polite, with manners. Remember?
I have personally seen some of these monstrous horrible children. Yes, children, telling their mothers to “fuck off” or to “shut up”. Or calling their parents awful names - to their faces. Whenever I see it, it makes me cringe, and I feel awful - often, oddly enough, for the parent. Not in my wildest dreams could I imagine speaking to my parents like that when I was growing up, or for that matter, even now. But then, they never listened to the stupid child psychologists either.
I once was so shocked at a child’s rudeness to their mother that I turned round and before I could stop myself said “Don’t talk to your mother like that!” The child’s mouth dropped open - and I thought she was going to lay into me. But she didn’t. She shut up. Guess she didn’t hear that often.
As the article says, Britain in particular has been hit with a slew of uber-PC do-gooders, who dumb down everything in sight. Thanks to the 1989 Children’s Act, which has put children firmly in the driving seat and seemingly beyond the control of their parents and has almost disenfranchised parents. So, bad behaviour is called “challenging behaviour.” And, instead of telling a child when they are out of line, you find the parents proudly approving of their ill-behaved brat, with that “isn’t she cute?” look, even when they are being incredibly rude and horrible. So much for our “child-centred” society. Discplining your child can land you in hot water - and we are seeing the result.
I will say here (as I am pretty sure someone is gearing up to tell me) that not all kids are badly behaved. I think of my friends who are parents and I cannot think of better behaved children than theirs. They are polite. They are well mannered. They are good kids. But those parents don’t take any crap from their kids. Not for a minute.
Bratty, badly behaved kids aren’t the sole preserve of the UK though. They are here too and growing in numbers (along with their appeasing fawning parents). We have the “children are only small adults brigade” here too. They are not small adults, they are children and if you cannot say “No” to your own kids, if you allow them to disrespect, insult and, yes, abuse you and others, and think you are a good parent for allowing this… you’re not helping them - or anyone else.
I encourage you to read the article right the way through. And am I glad I am childfree.
Here are a couple of excerpts from the article.
“Child-centred” has become a buzz phrase beloved by educationalists, psychologists and just about anyone working with children.
Our friends Jim and Charlie are child-centred parents. They came to dinner, bringing (uninvited and unwanted) their eight-year-old boy and four-year-old daughter. Plus the nanny. Because it took at least three adults to control these two brats.
The eight-year-old breezily announced: “Everyone loves me.” Pointing suddenly at my husband, he demanded: “You love me, don’t you?” When he got over the shock, my husband lukewarmly agreed.
What else to do? The entire evening was spent preventing the four-year-old climbing the stairs. Upstairs was my office, bedrooms - the usual private spaces of a house - and more importantly the cat, who had taken one look at the visitors and wisely fled. The little girl’s parents were laughably apologetic, proud of her ‘intellectual curiosity’ and ‘adventurous spirit’.
Inevitably, at some point during dinner, she escaped.
She was upstairs tormenting the cat. She’d thrown the contents of the litter tray, water and food bowl round the bedroom.
“What are you doing?” I demanded. She burst into tears and left for home two hours later, still crying. Was it the first time she had ever been admonished? “
Probably.
Here’s another quote from the article:
“I recently saw a small boy hit his mother full in the face with a cricket bat at a local fete. He’d been twirling the bat, ignoring her nervous pleas for him to stop.
Eventually, he deliberately flung the bat straight at her. As she sat, stunned, crying into the picnic, others ran to help. The small perpetrator just stood there, interested in the drama he’d produced.
Then there was the besuited dad out with his son. The boy was maybe six.
For some reason the child lost his temper, and the father tried to squat down and calm the boy.
He was struck in the face and quickly stood up, only to find himself repeatedly being kicked in the shins by this mini-tyro.
The astonishing thing was the man made no attempt to stop him, too scared to apply the kind of discipline that came naturally to previous generations.”
People. These brats are UNDER TEN YEARS OLD!!
Your thoughts?
Thanks mercurior for sending me the link. Great find!
Why liberal parents are now breeding a generation of little horrors
by Jo-Ann Goodwin in the Daily Mail on June 14, 2007
Technorati Tags: childfree, childfree
Britgirl, I fear it’s getting to be almost as bad here in America. We’re teetering on the edge between “good old-fashioned don’t-spare-the-rod” discipline and “agency-enforced do-good-to-your-child-or-else” BS parenting.
True, some parents have been shown on videotape going way out of line with the discipline, going into abuse territory. But these incidents are few and far between. I was raised from the beginning to have a healthy respect for my parents. If I got out of line, all it took was a scolding and/or threat from my dad to whip me back in line. I was rarely spanked, but the times that I was, it was done swiftly and just enough to learn a lesson. And always with my parents saying they didn’t want to do that ever again.
Love sometimes requires good discipline… Tough love!
Try working in a grocery store. If its not a kid stealing, its a kid crying because Mommy or Daddy won’t buy the right candy or cereal. They also don’t mention this little tidbit: Some Parents lay into you for daring to tell little Dakota to not try to eat the nasty piece of gunk off the floor or to catch up with their parents.
I was spanked and threatened as a kid, and I’m well-behaved. What i don’t understand is how they can have a kid and not even manage to get a kid to respect them.
What a damned nightmare.
And I too have seen kids like this in action. Cussing their parents the hell out, refusing to obey or follow directions, and running completely amok basking in their inherent brattiness.
I can’t imagine how these parents cope through life without jumping off a building or overdosing on Children’s Tylenol.
I really can’t.
And people wonder why we are Childfree?? Seriously?? I would never tolerate that from a child. Ever.
If that had been my kid with the cricket bat, I probably would have hit him back. But I’m mean like that and that is why I do not have kids.
I was in the grocery store checkout line one day and the woman in front of me had to have the cashier page her kids over the intercom because they had wandered off somewhere. They came up to her and blatantly told her that they weren’t done looking yet and she should “just sit her @ss down and wait for them.” I was appalled. I know my mouth probably fell open in astonishment. After they left, I told the cashier that would have been my mom’s cue to smack me across the the face. She also looked stunned and agreed that her mom would have done the same thing.
I’m 24 years old and I still would never dream of talking to my mom that way (because she’d still do the same thing to me
) Sure, my brother and I got spanked, but because we knew our parents never bluffed and never negotiated (if they said you were getting busted, you were and fighting it only made it worse) they didn’t have to do it all that often.
You’re supposed to be your child’s parent not their friend. There is a huge difference. Sure, my mom and I are friends now and have a great relationship, but we’re also both adults. When I was growing up, she was my parent because she wouldn’t hesitate to discipline me. Of course, I didn’t like it and was ticked at her for a little while but her attitude toward that was ‘tough, they’ll get over it’. She didn’t care if she “hurt my feelings” or “made me mad at her.” She was doing what she was supposed to do and what was best for me and my brother (not to mention society). So many “parents” want their children to “like them” that they’re scared to do anything to their kids that might upset them. What we end up with are the kids ruling the roost, not the parents, and they develop the “entitlement” attitude which does not get any better as they get older. Okay, getting off my soapbox now…
I often wonder what the current crop of such children are going to be like when they become parents. How does someone who is spoiled and entitled give any of that up when he/she becomes a parent? It should be fun to watch.
I can tell you that personally, if any hypothetical child of mine ever spoke to me in such a manner, or hit me, they’d get it right back. Nothing like a return smack to understand what it is to hurt someone. As a teacher, I am rarely spoken to that way- there must be that look in my eyes that says, Don’t even try it.
I think one of the Daily Mail readers who commented nailed the problem- it’s parents who don’t spend enough time with their kids. When you have minimal time, you don’t want to spend it doing the grunt work, and you’re so tired you don’t want to invest time and energy into meaningful discipline. The combination of tiredness and guilt is deadly, and the result is that spoilt brat.
Chris W - I think of all those kids being brought up to think they are so wonderful they they need have no respect for their parents or anyone else and those parents who think these same kids are so wonderful and it is a horrible thought. Discipline seems to have become a dirty word.
Lemur - oh yes, funny that the ones who won’t dare tell their child the right thing still resent anyone else from doing it either. Like “How dare you talk to my child like that…” They never seem to be able to see it.I think that’s how they (don’t) deal with it. The kid sees it though.
Tanya - Yep, me too. I’d never tolerate that. I can’t imagine the state telling me I am not allowed discipline my child - something that is neccessary for them for God’s sake! Or that I should be my child’s “friend.” What a joke. What happened to being your child’s parent?
Yet, what do we hear? Oh, how can you not want children? You should have children… you must have children..parenting is wonderful, look at us! Well, I did look and it was enough to turn me off parenting - if I had had the slightest interest in the first place
Mel: Baffles me how any parent can allow their kids to talk to them in that way. I almost cringe when I hear it - what that tells me that they know they can do it and what’s more their mother would do exactly as they said. And they were in public - don’t want to imagine what they say in their home. It makes me glad I have the parents I have.
Anne-Marie - it will be very interesting indeed. Doesn’t bode well that’s for sure. I think that reader nailed it as well.. but it begs the question - why do they have children then? As trophies? just because they can?
Lucky you - it must be that look in your eye
- a colleague of mine told once that a child in her sister’s school, when asked not to do something, said to her ” You can’t tell me what to do! You’re not the boss of me!” The child was about nine.
And now they are growing into teenagers some of them and literally killing people for no reason in the UK!!!
Almost every day!
“OK. So parenting is no cakewalk. We know. That’s why I am childfree. We know that a parent will resignedly say “Well, it’s all right for you, you should try raising kids and see how easy it is to control them.”
Um, no. They are yours, you brought them into the world and we are never allowed to forget it since you keep telling us what a mistake we’ve made by not following your example and reproducing. YOU are responsible for controlling them, for bringing them up to be polite, with manners. Remember?”
Could I POSSIBLY agree MORE?! I don’t THINK so!!! Well said!!
I’ve seen exactly what you are talking about here in the U.S.
But I will say that both my wife and I (who have kids, btw)
will not tolerate this crap from our own kids, or anybody else’s.
In fact, our own kids are mortified at how badly behaved other kids are in public.
Maybe it is risky, but if a kid mouths off in front of me, even in public, and even if it’s not my own kid, a loud, deep-voiced, “What is WRONG with you? Didn’t you just get told to sit DOWN?”
will silence them. I think using the phrase, “What is WRONG with YOU”
is very effective, because it really hits home that the CHILD is completely at fault. The look on there face usually says, “….nobody ever told me anything was my fault before….”
Oh, and if anybody’s interested, yes we did spank our kids when they were young. Not often, but then, if you really discipline your kids, you DON’T have to spank them much. In fact, I bet after age 5, we never had to even once. They behave out of respect and fear of authority - two things that are sadly missing these days, even amongst adults.