I had a rank alcoholic father in and out of recovery, and a bipolar mother on and off antidepressants in the 70’s in the rural south, with an adult half-brother and sisters from my father’s first marriage whom I never lived with.
There were iron-clad rules no matter how chaotic the house was.
You’re responsible for being home @6 for dinner.
You’re responsible for your grades.
You’re responsible to get to and from school on time.
You’re responsible for your own mess.
You’re responsible to help those who aren’t as lucky.
You’re responsible for your own boredom.
You’re responsible to be obedient to your elders.
You’re responsible to stand up for yourself.
Never try to bullshit your way out of a problem.
Don’t be a whiner, nobody likes a whiner.
We’ll pay for what we think you need, and love you the best we can.
I call it in retrospect watchful, benign neglect.
I was gay, quite effeminate, bullied until puberty, received a chemistry set and microscope at age 5 in the late 60’s (seriously what were they thinking, scalpels and microtomes? Frogs in formaldehyde?) and basically ran amok my whole childhood, acting like Sheldon from Big Bang Theory - played 6 musical instruments at national level, built my own synthesizers, computers and lasers, grew and hybridized orchids along with clonal apical meristematic tissue cultures, sold newspapers, sold women’s shoes, babysat, had a landscaping business, applied quite gay interior design to my bedroom (think macrame planters, chrome and supergraphics) learned ikebana, made paper, did a weekly “floral tribute”, had bicycle accidents, a motorcycle accident, a car accident, filled the house with chlorine gas, melted electrical breakers, started fires, chemically melted the carpet, was a music and math tutor, was in a symphony orchestra, marching band, concert band, jazz band, and after math and science contest wins, I tested into a National Merit Scholarship, got a 1600 SAT and escaped to Caltech just in time for AIDS to destroy the gay community I planned to escape to. A completely annoying child.
Blah blah blah.
The concept of my parents asking me what I wanted, pausing on my every word is so risible, and for any child of my half-siblings so bizarre that it’s like reading an anthropology article about a strange distant culture. I don’t understand how we evolved into the condition.
Perhaps you talk about this elsewhere in the book. Another problem is the fact that families are no longer having multiple children. When there is only one or perhaps two children, there is nowhere near the same learning curve that can be obtained with larger families of 5, 8, 10, 13, or more children. And certainly no time for nonsense emotional indulgence with so many kids.
Our 3rd child was very difficult, and we did not fawn over him or coddle him. But we weren't promised easy children. He was committed to his own agenda even as a tiny dude, in his own universe of his way or the highway. The usual suspects wanted very badly for us to medicate him (ritalin) into a zombie, and the schools always dangled the "He will get better grades" carrot. We refused and took his crappy grades. In high school he ended up starting to work and take some HS classes online and some at school. He ended up taking his GED and switched to full time work. He was obviously always extremely independent and packed his car and hit the road cross country by the time he was 20. He will never be a 40-year-old basement dweller in his parents' home. He is independent, law-abiding and self-supporting, and his brain is still fully intact after not having been bathed in medications. The parents are worn out but that's life. Some children are difficult no matter what you do, but so what! Diagnostic code: serious pain in the butt.
My dad was famous for saying, "rub some dirt on it" when my brother and I fell down. When my daughter was two, she fell flat on her face at a Starbucks. Other parents gasped. As she looked up to see my reaction, I looked at her with the expectation that she get up. She got up and continued walking. Instill grit when they are young. You can do the work early, when they are very young, or you can do the work later when they are a teenager, when it's 100x harder and has a 50/50 chance of working at all. I made many mistakes as a parent. But I think I got that part right.
Love the basic premise. I remember watching a dad at an open gym session following his 3-year-old around, plaintively requesting permission to change his diaper. The kid looked disgusted.
However, as with most things, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
For example, I read Raising Your Spirited Child cover to cover because our daughter really did have sensory issues, and it wasn’t our imagination. At 7 she was reading on the level of a 12-year-old but couldn’t imitate a cross-body movement or figure out how to carry more than one thing at a time. She could barely figure out how to dress herself. And being touched the wrong way made her flinch. School days were exhausting for her, and not because we were coddling her at home. Looking back, she was probably vaccine injured, because these things showed up after a bad reaction to the MMR at 15 months.
So we read the books and got her OT and adjusted our parenting a bit. If she had grown up in the 60s, her parents would have just ignored it, people would just call her “strange” and she would be one of those weird, not-quite-right adults you feel vaguely uncomfortable around. Instead, our being a little more therapist-like as parents (sorry) helped her develop coping skills and essentially grow out of it and become a normal adult.
Maybe other parents these days have to read the books too, and that doesn’t mean they are raising monsters who, if growing up in the 60s, would have been perfectly well-adjusted children. Maybe there are other factors at play here, like the fact that I had 6 vaccines and our daughter had maybe 30 or 40. I can’t remember how many, but I regret every single one. Maybe a lot of parents today really are faced with hypersensitive kids with sensory issues, and it’s not because they keep asking permission to change a diaper or need to say “knock it off” a little more often.
I am that exact Soviet èmigrè redolent of Russian stoicism and so is my husband. And here we are, scratching our heads over how did we end up getting sucked into this docile parenting culture? I painfully recognise ourselves in many of these descriptions.
Years ago when our kids were still in pre school, my mom, whose Soviet Russian stoicism is much stronger than mine used to tell me that I was creating enormous troubles for myself with my parenting style. I vaguely sensed she was right but in the overwhelming culture of child-centered upbringing I just could not seem to find the right exit.
In 2021 my mom’s prophecy came to life. Per school requirement I took my teen to an emergency room for psychiatric evaluation. I naively thought that the psychiatrist will see what two generations of adults in our family saw but what school did not want to see: a teen who is terribly distressed by the lockdowns but also a very rebellious one toying with suicidal threats.
But only one of the two nurses evaluating my daughter at the ER psychiatric ward arrived to the same conclusion. Alas, she wasn’t the decision making one.
The second nurse who basically sent my daughter to mental hospital was a younger, in her 30s, black lady. The other nurse who lamented my daughter is being sent to a behavioural ward was older, in her 50s, and she was white gray haired woman.
The pro-hospitalisation nurse was very invested in her check list questions and hardly looked at my child during the evaluation.
The anti-hospitalisation nurse was carefully observing my daughter’s mimics and body language even as she was taking her vitals. I begged her to explain to me how we could still avoid this unnecessary hospitalisation, to which she sighed: “hope you are lucky meeting someone on the next phase of her evaluation who will sign the right paper.”
We were not. And my 11 year old ended up hospitalized. It cemented her notion that suicidal threats open doors she considered cool (mental hospitalisation is considered very cool among modern teens). This hospitalisation has completely ripped us, her parents of our agency and authority.
Two horrible years full of therapy and therapists, social workers, evaluations and more hospitalisations followed. My teen tried to pull off more and more unruly behaviours with zero regard for her sibling or her parents, us. One of her tantrums happened when she saw the “Irreversible Damage” book on my shelf. She took it as an offence against her important values.
My mom warning kept playing in my head. At the same time I felt that the family values of my husband and me and of our parents simply went against the culture around us. Against new set of values imposed on us by school, therapists, social workers. When the pronouns got added to that salad, it felt maddening…
Curiously enough our teen behavior deteriorated when my parents, with whom we live in a multigmenratuonsl household for six months out of twelve went back to Russia. It was like their no bullshit approach served as a pole of stability for her though -gosh- did she complain about them! But the moment grandparents left she crumbled.
I knew that if I wanted to keep my sanity and to save my daughter and my family I had to be surrounded by the old world approach.
To Russia I couldn’t go because the war has already started, though at some point I strongly considered it and I know other Russian immigrant parent with similar issues who did return to Russia to save her child.
We went to Italy. My daughter did not take our decision well. It was a nightmare and yet another hospitalisation when she tried to stop the move. That is when, for the first time in two years a psychiatrist at Stanford ER asked my husband privately: “so do you really feel like she wanted to commit a suicide?”
- Of course not! said my husband. It’s a power play. Both men seemed relieved feeling they are on the same page. One month later we landed in Italy.
It has now been six months and all is well. Adults here still have balls to be adults and it rubbed off my husband and me and our teens behaviour changed. My daughter who is now 13 is on the right track. She cleans after our numerous cats without reminders, she reads her Russian books, continues with her German lessons, masters Italian. She is being polite and considerate of others and she recently started baby sitting.
I often feel that my husband and I still have to shed layers of “slate” parenting off and I plan to use “Bad Therapy” as motivation and inspiration to stay on track.
Thank you for reading my long story. It’s such a relief to let it out of my chest. I hope “Bad Therapy” will help many more parents. And kids.
Great article. Reading these examples of bad parenting was exhausting to think how disruptive their home life must be. Just learn to say no and stop pandering to a toddler who doesn’t require 24/7 coddling.
You've got it half right. There's a middle way. You can be the "knock it off!" type parent and avoid all the therapy-parent melodrama while also treating your kids with respect. My oldest is 14 and I have literally never punished my kids. I generally treat them as capable and competent, give them freedom to make their own choices when possible, but also let them know when it's time to "knock it off" or they're doing something unacceptable. When you treat them with respect and reserve your serious voice for the times when it's actually serious, turns out they take you seriously.
Looking forward to the book! I’ll put a copy in my “little library” that’s next to my mailbox. “Irreversible Damage” is in there already. Congratulations! Read your stack to my husband tonight. We both laughed out loud. Great piece.
“Flowers grow best in dirt!” My husband and I are still cracking up about that line.
Way to tackle another hot button topic. I’ll be praying for you! I’m sure there will be plenty of push back on this one! But the truth needs to be told so the world does not end up like that movie, “Idiocracy”.
Boomer here… I used to say to my kids… you might need therapy one day, but your Dad and I love you and we are doing to best we can, but just so you know, we are in charge of this household. We spanked - only rarely - and taught our kids the meaning of the word no because they needed to learn it under our guidance instead of alone in the world which tells people no every day - teachers, bosses, stop lights, empty gas gauges, etc. At 21 our son lost his full ride scholarship to college and so he had to come home. When he did not want to follow our rules we kicked him out with one month’s rent, food, utilities,etc. and it broke my heart. I cried tears he never saw. At 25 he told me that it was the best thing we ever did for him because it forced him to see how hard the world can be and so he grew up. Both our children are resilient, healthy adults with good jobs and strong families. I do need to add this. We are a family of faith and believe that God’s wisdom and our strong faith community has guided us through our years to parenting.. some good and some very hard.
Gen-Xer here, raised by Boomer parents. Some of this was starting even back then. My mom actually had that book "How to Talk so your Kids will Listen..." My brothers and I were left home to take care of ourselves a lot, and developed our own pecking order (older brother was the tyrant.) Even when mom was home, older brother was still in charge. Mom was afraid of him. She complained about our constant fighting (we did fight A LOT, and it wasn't fun for us two younger kids either) but she wasn't able to assert her authority over us kids. I'm sure that book didn't help. (Dad was the "knock it off" type and we fought a lot less around him. )
But we are NOT the first generation to complain about our upbringing. My boomer parents, and many other boomers I know, still feel they were deeply wronged by their own parents -- no love, didn't show up for special events, etc. My parents had nothing nice to say about my grandparents. There was no modeling of respecting one's elders in my house. I'm sure we were not unique in that respect.
The funny thing is, my grandparents (WWII generation) always recounted their childhoods fondly and shared good memories of their parents (even when they were getting disciplined-- they always added "I had it coming.") The cultural shift happened between those two generations, I think.
I could only skim all the moronic gentle parenting stories - they were beyond irritating. What I want to say to these parents is “who is in charge here?!” If you want to raise individuals that can function in society & are good people then you have to be the boss not the therapist! It is your responsibility to teach them how to behave & be aware of how their actions affect others—not how every little thing affects them. They’re raising very unlikeable individuals that will have no idea that they’re jerks.
This is a much-needed book. I have been watching child-rearing practices devolve over the past twenty years with utter bewilderment. At work -- we teach young adults -- we are expected to treat them like children. Because I treat them like adults, my colleagues think I'm something out of the stone ages. They rush students into diagnoses -- I was the only one to plead with another teacher not to send the student to the Disability office.
I have a friend who won't let her twelve-year-old son walk across the street to school because she's afraid he'll get hit by a car. Later, on a visit, I saw that there was a crossing guard. But he has a phone with unlimited access to internet.
Another friend -- we were supposed to be sitting on the sidelines watching her 5-year-old guided by two adults at a YMCA class for kids. All the other kids were away so the daughter was the only student. My friend kept rushing over to stop the kid from doing this or that, insulting the people teaching her. Later, the kid was playing on a plastic jungle gym with a pit full of balls, shrieking with joy and my friend rushed over to stop her from -- enjoying herself. This upset me so much I shouted, Leave her alone! Some months later my friend told me that her daughter started hitting her.
Both of these friends sleep in the same room as their kids. There's almost never any opportunity for agency.
On another occasion, in a grocery store I witnessed a mother asking a three-year old what she wants for dinner. The kid started bawling. I couldn't believe it! What happened to cause and effect thinking? Because I was given no choice, I became an adaptable person. I do not have SPECIAL NEEDS.
I’m a conservative father of two, working as an aide in their high school (and own a business that actually pays the bills). The feminized dads & therapist moms have produced a bunch of annoying, attention-craving, disruptive snowflakes. I hate public sector unions & won’t ever join but the reason kids aren’t learning & SATs are falling, Dear Parents, is not bad teachers; it’s the dumbass jerks you’ve sent them.
Thank you for Irreversible Damages. On this topic You are so spot on. These children don't know how to fail, expect the world to give them everything because all their lives they are told they are special. They get married in " special places" like barns, art galleries, god forbid in a hotel or the temple social hall. They have to give their children "special baby names" like Kalliope, Ignatius, Darwin, and Brooklyn, what happened to Thomas and Mary. And to continue feeling special everything is an event or a present. Push presents, gender reveal parties, Sip and see to meet the baby...the winner in all of this is the decorative paper companies.
And what is up with the sports water bottles, we drank water out of a hose.
I had a rank alcoholic father in and out of recovery, and a bipolar mother on and off antidepressants in the 70’s in the rural south, with an adult half-brother and sisters from my father’s first marriage whom I never lived with.
There were iron-clad rules no matter how chaotic the house was.
You’re responsible for being home @6 for dinner.
You’re responsible for your grades.
You’re responsible to get to and from school on time.
You’re responsible for your own mess.
You’re responsible to help those who aren’t as lucky.
You’re responsible for your own boredom.
You’re responsible to be obedient to your elders.
You’re responsible to stand up for yourself.
Never try to bullshit your way out of a problem.
Don’t be a whiner, nobody likes a whiner.
We’ll pay for what we think you need, and love you the best we can.
I call it in retrospect watchful, benign neglect.
I was gay, quite effeminate, bullied until puberty, received a chemistry set and microscope at age 5 in the late 60’s (seriously what were they thinking, scalpels and microtomes? Frogs in formaldehyde?) and basically ran amok my whole childhood, acting like Sheldon from Big Bang Theory - played 6 musical instruments at national level, built my own synthesizers, computers and lasers, grew and hybridized orchids along with clonal apical meristematic tissue cultures, sold newspapers, sold women’s shoes, babysat, had a landscaping business, applied quite gay interior design to my bedroom (think macrame planters, chrome and supergraphics) learned ikebana, made paper, did a weekly “floral tribute”, had bicycle accidents, a motorcycle accident, a car accident, filled the house with chlorine gas, melted electrical breakers, started fires, chemically melted the carpet, was a music and math tutor, was in a symphony orchestra, marching band, concert band, jazz band, and after math and science contest wins, I tested into a National Merit Scholarship, got a 1600 SAT and escaped to Caltech just in time for AIDS to destroy the gay community I planned to escape to. A completely annoying child.
Blah blah blah.
The concept of my parents asking me what I wanted, pausing on my every word is so risible, and for any child of my half-siblings so bizarre that it’s like reading an anthropology article about a strange distant culture. I don’t understand how we evolved into the condition.
Perhaps you talk about this elsewhere in the book. Another problem is the fact that families are no longer having multiple children. When there is only one or perhaps two children, there is nowhere near the same learning curve that can be obtained with larger families of 5, 8, 10, 13, or more children. And certainly no time for nonsense emotional indulgence with so many kids.
Our 3rd child was very difficult, and we did not fawn over him or coddle him. But we weren't promised easy children. He was committed to his own agenda even as a tiny dude, in his own universe of his way or the highway. The usual suspects wanted very badly for us to medicate him (ritalin) into a zombie, and the schools always dangled the "He will get better grades" carrot. We refused and took his crappy grades. In high school he ended up starting to work and take some HS classes online and some at school. He ended up taking his GED and switched to full time work. He was obviously always extremely independent and packed his car and hit the road cross country by the time he was 20. He will never be a 40-year-old basement dweller in his parents' home. He is independent, law-abiding and self-supporting, and his brain is still fully intact after not having been bathed in medications. The parents are worn out but that's life. Some children are difficult no matter what you do, but so what! Diagnostic code: serious pain in the butt.
My dad was famous for saying, "rub some dirt on it" when my brother and I fell down. When my daughter was two, she fell flat on her face at a Starbucks. Other parents gasped. As she looked up to see my reaction, I looked at her with the expectation that she get up. She got up and continued walking. Instill grit when they are young. You can do the work early, when they are very young, or you can do the work later when they are a teenager, when it's 100x harder and has a 50/50 chance of working at all. I made many mistakes as a parent. But I think I got that part right.
Love the basic premise. I remember watching a dad at an open gym session following his 3-year-old around, plaintively requesting permission to change his diaper. The kid looked disgusted.
However, as with most things, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
For example, I read Raising Your Spirited Child cover to cover because our daughter really did have sensory issues, and it wasn’t our imagination. At 7 she was reading on the level of a 12-year-old but couldn’t imitate a cross-body movement or figure out how to carry more than one thing at a time. She could barely figure out how to dress herself. And being touched the wrong way made her flinch. School days were exhausting for her, and not because we were coddling her at home. Looking back, she was probably vaccine injured, because these things showed up after a bad reaction to the MMR at 15 months.
So we read the books and got her OT and adjusted our parenting a bit. If she had grown up in the 60s, her parents would have just ignored it, people would just call her “strange” and she would be one of those weird, not-quite-right adults you feel vaguely uncomfortable around. Instead, our being a little more therapist-like as parents (sorry) helped her develop coping skills and essentially grow out of it and become a normal adult.
Maybe other parents these days have to read the books too, and that doesn’t mean they are raising monsters who, if growing up in the 60s, would have been perfectly well-adjusted children. Maybe there are other factors at play here, like the fact that I had 6 vaccines and our daughter had maybe 30 or 40. I can’t remember how many, but I regret every single one. Maybe a lot of parents today really are faced with hypersensitive kids with sensory issues, and it’s not because they keep asking permission to change a diaper or need to say “knock it off” a little more often.
I am that exact Soviet èmigrè redolent of Russian stoicism and so is my husband. And here we are, scratching our heads over how did we end up getting sucked into this docile parenting culture? I painfully recognise ourselves in many of these descriptions.
Years ago when our kids were still in pre school, my mom, whose Soviet Russian stoicism is much stronger than mine used to tell me that I was creating enormous troubles for myself with my parenting style. I vaguely sensed she was right but in the overwhelming culture of child-centered upbringing I just could not seem to find the right exit.
In 2021 my mom’s prophecy came to life. Per school requirement I took my teen to an emergency room for psychiatric evaluation. I naively thought that the psychiatrist will see what two generations of adults in our family saw but what school did not want to see: a teen who is terribly distressed by the lockdowns but also a very rebellious one toying with suicidal threats.
But only one of the two nurses evaluating my daughter at the ER psychiatric ward arrived to the same conclusion. Alas, she wasn’t the decision making one.
The second nurse who basically sent my daughter to mental hospital was a younger, in her 30s, black lady. The other nurse who lamented my daughter is being sent to a behavioural ward was older, in her 50s, and she was white gray haired woman.
The pro-hospitalisation nurse was very invested in her check list questions and hardly looked at my child during the evaluation.
The anti-hospitalisation nurse was carefully observing my daughter’s mimics and body language even as she was taking her vitals. I begged her to explain to me how we could still avoid this unnecessary hospitalisation, to which she sighed: “hope you are lucky meeting someone on the next phase of her evaluation who will sign the right paper.”
We were not. And my 11 year old ended up hospitalized. It cemented her notion that suicidal threats open doors she considered cool (mental hospitalisation is considered very cool among modern teens). This hospitalisation has completely ripped us, her parents of our agency and authority.
Two horrible years full of therapy and therapists, social workers, evaluations and more hospitalisations followed. My teen tried to pull off more and more unruly behaviours with zero regard for her sibling or her parents, us. One of her tantrums happened when she saw the “Irreversible Damage” book on my shelf. She took it as an offence against her important values.
My mom warning kept playing in my head. At the same time I felt that the family values of my husband and me and of our parents simply went against the culture around us. Against new set of values imposed on us by school, therapists, social workers. When the pronouns got added to that salad, it felt maddening…
Curiously enough our teen behavior deteriorated when my parents, with whom we live in a multigmenratuonsl household for six months out of twelve went back to Russia. It was like their no bullshit approach served as a pole of stability for her though -gosh- did she complain about them! But the moment grandparents left she crumbled.
I knew that if I wanted to keep my sanity and to save my daughter and my family I had to be surrounded by the old world approach.
To Russia I couldn’t go because the war has already started, though at some point I strongly considered it and I know other Russian immigrant parent with similar issues who did return to Russia to save her child.
We went to Italy. My daughter did not take our decision well. It was a nightmare and yet another hospitalisation when she tried to stop the move. That is when, for the first time in two years a psychiatrist at Stanford ER asked my husband privately: “so do you really feel like she wanted to commit a suicide?”
- Of course not! said my husband. It’s a power play. Both men seemed relieved feeling they are on the same page. One month later we landed in Italy.
It has now been six months and all is well. Adults here still have balls to be adults and it rubbed off my husband and me and our teens behaviour changed. My daughter who is now 13 is on the right track. She cleans after our numerous cats without reminders, she reads her Russian books, continues with her German lessons, masters Italian. She is being polite and considerate of others and she recently started baby sitting.
I often feel that my husband and I still have to shed layers of “slate” parenting off and I plan to use “Bad Therapy” as motivation and inspiration to stay on track.
Thank you for reading my long story. It’s such a relief to let it out of my chest. I hope “Bad Therapy” will help many more parents. And kids.
Great article. Reading these examples of bad parenting was exhausting to think how disruptive their home life must be. Just learn to say no and stop pandering to a toddler who doesn’t require 24/7 coddling.
You've got it half right. There's a middle way. You can be the "knock it off!" type parent and avoid all the therapy-parent melodrama while also treating your kids with respect. My oldest is 14 and I have literally never punished my kids. I generally treat them as capable and competent, give them freedom to make their own choices when possible, but also let them know when it's time to "knock it off" or they're doing something unacceptable. When you treat them with respect and reserve your serious voice for the times when it's actually serious, turns out they take you seriously.
Looking forward to the book! I’ll put a copy in my “little library” that’s next to my mailbox. “Irreversible Damage” is in there already. Congratulations! Read your stack to my husband tonight. We both laughed out loud. Great piece.
“Flowers grow best in dirt!” My husband and I are still cracking up about that line.
Way to tackle another hot button topic. I’ll be praying for you! I’m sure there will be plenty of push back on this one! But the truth needs to be told so the world does not end up like that movie, “Idiocracy”.
Boomer here… I used to say to my kids… you might need therapy one day, but your Dad and I love you and we are doing to best we can, but just so you know, we are in charge of this household. We spanked - only rarely - and taught our kids the meaning of the word no because they needed to learn it under our guidance instead of alone in the world which tells people no every day - teachers, bosses, stop lights, empty gas gauges, etc. At 21 our son lost his full ride scholarship to college and so he had to come home. When he did not want to follow our rules we kicked him out with one month’s rent, food, utilities,etc. and it broke my heart. I cried tears he never saw. At 25 he told me that it was the best thing we ever did for him because it forced him to see how hard the world can be and so he grew up. Both our children are resilient, healthy adults with good jobs and strong families. I do need to add this. We are a family of faith and believe that God’s wisdom and our strong faith community has guided us through our years to parenting.. some good and some very hard.
Gen-Xer here, raised by Boomer parents. Some of this was starting even back then. My mom actually had that book "How to Talk so your Kids will Listen..." My brothers and I were left home to take care of ourselves a lot, and developed our own pecking order (older brother was the tyrant.) Even when mom was home, older brother was still in charge. Mom was afraid of him. She complained about our constant fighting (we did fight A LOT, and it wasn't fun for us two younger kids either) but she wasn't able to assert her authority over us kids. I'm sure that book didn't help. (Dad was the "knock it off" type and we fought a lot less around him. )
But we are NOT the first generation to complain about our upbringing. My boomer parents, and many other boomers I know, still feel they were deeply wronged by their own parents -- no love, didn't show up for special events, etc. My parents had nothing nice to say about my grandparents. There was no modeling of respecting one's elders in my house. I'm sure we were not unique in that respect.
The funny thing is, my grandparents (WWII generation) always recounted their childhoods fondly and shared good memories of their parents (even when they were getting disciplined-- they always added "I had it coming.") The cultural shift happened between those two generations, I think.
I could only skim all the moronic gentle parenting stories - they were beyond irritating. What I want to say to these parents is “who is in charge here?!” If you want to raise individuals that can function in society & are good people then you have to be the boss not the therapist! It is your responsibility to teach them how to behave & be aware of how their actions affect others—not how every little thing affects them. They’re raising very unlikeable individuals that will have no idea that they’re jerks.
This is a much-needed book. I have been watching child-rearing practices devolve over the past twenty years with utter bewilderment. At work -- we teach young adults -- we are expected to treat them like children. Because I treat them like adults, my colleagues think I'm something out of the stone ages. They rush students into diagnoses -- I was the only one to plead with another teacher not to send the student to the Disability office.
I have a friend who won't let her twelve-year-old son walk across the street to school because she's afraid he'll get hit by a car. Later, on a visit, I saw that there was a crossing guard. But he has a phone with unlimited access to internet.
Another friend -- we were supposed to be sitting on the sidelines watching her 5-year-old guided by two adults at a YMCA class for kids. All the other kids were away so the daughter was the only student. My friend kept rushing over to stop the kid from doing this or that, insulting the people teaching her. Later, the kid was playing on a plastic jungle gym with a pit full of balls, shrieking with joy and my friend rushed over to stop her from -- enjoying herself. This upset me so much I shouted, Leave her alone! Some months later my friend told me that her daughter started hitting her.
Both of these friends sleep in the same room as their kids. There's almost never any opportunity for agency.
On another occasion, in a grocery store I witnessed a mother asking a three-year old what she wants for dinner. The kid started bawling. I couldn't believe it! What happened to cause and effect thinking? Because I was given no choice, I became an adaptable person. I do not have SPECIAL NEEDS.
I’m a conservative father of two, working as an aide in their high school (and own a business that actually pays the bills). The feminized dads & therapist moms have produced a bunch of annoying, attention-craving, disruptive snowflakes. I hate public sector unions & won’t ever join but the reason kids aren’t learning & SATs are falling, Dear Parents, is not bad teachers; it’s the dumbass jerks you’ve sent them.
Thank you for Irreversible Damages. On this topic You are so spot on. These children don't know how to fail, expect the world to give them everything because all their lives they are told they are special. They get married in " special places" like barns, art galleries, god forbid in a hotel or the temple social hall. They have to give their children "special baby names" like Kalliope, Ignatius, Darwin, and Brooklyn, what happened to Thomas and Mary. And to continue feeling special everything is an event or a present. Push presents, gender reveal parties, Sip and see to meet the baby...the winner in all of this is the decorative paper companies.
And what is up with the sports water bottles, we drank water out of a hose.
I could go on and on. Thank you again.