TALKING LIKE YOUR PARENTS?

YOU COULD DO WORSE

John Rosemond

In this time of widespread parent-bashing, it's risky to be writing a

column in praise of the attitudes my parents' generation brought to the
job of raising children, but I've always been a risk-taker, so...
Like most parents, mine were imperfect. But despite their
inadequacies and excesses, their neuroses and worse, they had some
good ideas about raising children. Their child-rearing philosophy - the
same philosophy subscribed to by most parents of their generation (and
previous ones) - consisted of a handful of sayings which they often
quoted in my presence. Needless to say, these "parenting proverbs" - or,
more accurately, "pre-parenting proverbs" - never failed to irritate me. It
took me two children of my own to adjust my idealism to the realities of
child-rearing and begin to appreciate what my parents were trying to
express.
Perhaps the most irritating of all was "because I said so". So
irritating, in fact, that young Willie and John Rosemond pledged never
to say those four words to their children. It wasn't long before we found
ourselves in a constant state of verbal warfare with one child or another.
It finally dawned on us that "because I said so" is a statement of fact,
nothing more. It says, "You must do what you are told, not because I am
successful at explaining myself to you, but because I tell you." In other
words, authority is not up for grabs in the family. Parents are in charge.
Children are free to disagree, but not to disobey.
Then there was "children should be seen and not heard”, the
lynchpin of an all-but-lost child-rearing philosophy. Specifically, this
meant that when in the company of adults, children were to pay
attention, not clamor for it. In other words, children should look up to
adults more than adults look down at children. More generally, "seen
and not heard" meant that adults should supervise children well, but not
become highly involved with them. They were to maintain a certain
respectful distance from children, thereby enabling children to learn, by
trial and error, how to stand on their own two feet. Both of these
understandings have since been turned upside-down. These days, parents
seem to believe more attention should go from parent to child than from
child to parent. Then they wonder why children ignore them when they
speak. This generation of parents believes the more you close the
distance between yourself and your child, the better parent you are. They
then wonder why children don't want to face challenges on their own. I
also heard "you can't get something for nothing" a lot. This was
sometimes expressed as "you have to earn your keep around here."
Translate: Children should be fully responsible, contributing members of
the family. As a child, I had responsibilities, and I had freedoms. If I
wanted my freedoms, I had to be responsible. Give and take.
Reciprocity. Simple as that. Many of today's kids lack this fundamental
moral. They benefit from membership in their families, but are rarely, if
ever, required to put effort of any sort back into the system. No surprise,
then, that employers often tell me many young people want a full
paycheck for less than a full day's work. A child's lessons - whatever
they are - always begin at home.