How NO Can Be Positive

Children are not designed to raise their parents.

This basic premise seemingly is lost among America's parents, at least for the past 3 decades. Ever since America became industrialized, families began moving from the farms to the cities to work, and then around the late 50's, those families began spreading out into urban areas to live where there was more room and cheaper land. This is now what we call the suburbs. With all this moving from farms to the 'burbs, and the relative enrichment of the average American family, came a trend where parents had less contact with their children, and their children had less contact with any kind of responsible work around the home (or farm). In the past 2 decades, one would be hard pressed to find more than 1 in 1000 children to youth-aged children who have ever performed a "chore." Whereas in pre-1940 America a child might work side by side with their parent(s) around the homestead for upwards of 4 hours a day, in post 1960 America, the average child has less than 30 minutes of meaningful contact with either parent a day. It is how even that meger time is spent that is the most disturbing.

The trend in parenting today is to ask the child for advice, direction, and permission, which is exactly opposite of the way it is supposed to be. Quick reference to the previous paragraph would require the need for clarification in that, while families of the past spent more time together, including working together (on farms, etc.), that was no guarantee that all children of the past were reared in a more orthodox fashion. However, having great exposure to the "builder generation," this author can attest to the evidence of traditional, orthodox parenting among those raised prior to the 1950's. Another way of saying this is: among the builder generation, children who ruled over their parents were as unusual as polka dotted zebra's. Hard to find.

Unorthodox parenting is based upon the situation where children are greatly involved in their own rearing, including decision making. This comes about from parents who have shallow resources to pull from for parenting skills, and their deficit of skills is greater than that of their parents. You see, the more financially prosperous America becomes, the more lax and detached parents become, and the more children suffer from too much prosperity, too little work, and too many decisions to make as a child. This article is not an attempt to blame prosperity for spoiled, lazy, and disrespectful children, but merely to show an obvious correlation.

Orthodox parenting understands that the adult parent is in charge of all facets of the child's life, and therefore makes all the decisions for that child, based upon their greater wisdom and intelligence. Orthodox parenting is geared totally towards preparing the child for a responsible, productive adult hood, even if that means the child has to "endure" temporary loss of freedom or delayed satisfaction. Orthodox parenting knows full well that if the child is left to decide, they will almost always, in almost all situations, choose what is easiest, quickest, and least beneficial for them, based upon immediate need gratification and limited knowledge.

Unorthodox parenting is based upon the need to quiet or appease the child in their time of need, which as it turns out, is just about 24/7. This type of parenting shares the child's lack of vision into the future, and merely tries to deal with the here and now. Unorthodox parenting puts the child's immediate needs far above their future needs, and simply "hopes" the future will come to them in a safe, sensible way, with all problems smoothing out in the process.

Unorthodox parents tend to:

• Ask the child what they want to eat
• Ask the child what they want to wear
• Ask the child if they want to be punished
• Ask the child to be nice
• Ask the child to listen to them
• Ask the child to help around the house in vague, indefinite ways
• Be inconsistent in punishment and enforcement
• Whine to their children when they misbehave
• Attempt to strike deals with their children
• Break down easily and give in to the child's demands
• Try to "buy" love from their children by offering gifts or lienency
• Avoid "embarassing" their children at all costs
• See only good in their own child, but all the flaws in other children
• Accept disrespect and hatred from their children
• Give up and walk away from situations where the child is pressing an issue
• Display no real skills in parenting

Orthodox parents tend to:

• TELL their child what to eat, feeding them sound nutritionally balanced meals
• Tell their child what to wear, enforcing decency and good taste
• Tell their child the rules for punishment, and then stick to them
• Tell their children to behave
• Expect comformity to their rules and regulations
• Understand that no child will repeatedly choose what is best for them
• Set boundaries that only benefit the child in the long run
• Say no, mean no, and stick to no when "no" is the appropriate answer
• Understand that they are in charge, and not the child
• Let their children know that they as parents do not live for their children, but are merely responsible for raising them properly so they can move on and be responsible adults
• Allow loving discipline to win the child over, not temporary gifts
• Be determined to make their child see that they are not the center of the universe, but merely another "cog in the wheel" of life, and should always act accordingly
• Teach their children to always respect adults, especially seniors

Quite a contrast, isn't it? But who raises their children by the points of the second, orthodox list? Very few indeed, which is why we now live in a generation of selfish, disrespectful, lazy, immoral, and short sighted adults and children who will, in turn, raise children worse than themselves.

God help us.