If you are Stefan Molyneux, please read no further. But if you're not the Canadian philosophical genius, please read on.
This past extended Thanksgiving weekend had confirmed in my mind a trend I was subconsciously noting, but hadn't consciously realized or had crystalized in my frontal lobes. And that trend was the completely unacceptable behavior of my generation's children.
As more and more of my generation were breeding, their little rug rats (though originally starting off as unconscious cute infants, cooing and cuddling) soon turned into toddlers, exercising some sentience, independent thought, and independent behavior. And while there's the token kid who's cool, respectful, well-behaved, and...well...normal, the same cannot be said for what I estimate to be at least 90% of the remainder. They are absolutely atrocious little pieces of shit that (in all deadly seriousness) I would have no problem beating, and in some rarer cases, simply breaking their necks so that the herd may have a higher chance of survival. Quite literally, the only thing that prevents me from doing that is the law.
Their behaviors range from constant whining to biting adults.
From screaming because they didn't get what they wanted to spitting milk in parents' faces.
From "insto-crying" because you didn't immediately dot on whatever whim they had at the time to running around knocking stuff over at the (previously) quiet coffee shop.
And perhaps the one I find most fascinating is the 100% reliable refusal to obey their parents' commands. I once witnessed a GROUP of adults tell children to stop running NO LESS than 12 times, not one of them did. They COMPLETELY ignored their parents as if they weren't even there.
Of course, much as I'd like to break these childrens' little necks, the fault does not lie with them. They're too young and too unevolved to understand the moral ramifications and importance of good behavior and obeying their elders. But the blame does squarely land with their Gen X parents, the generation of which I am completely convinced will make Baby Boomer parents look like June and Ward Cleaver.
For each and every unacceptable behavior their children exhibit their is an equal and opposite shitty parenting technique that caused it.
Time outs (and not spanking) causes children to ignore your commands.
Reasoning with them as if they're fucking Plato and are going to ponder the moral ramifications of spitting in the house only sounds to them like Charlie Brown's teacher, the deep philosophical discussion of which will be immediately ignored once you're done saying in your wimpish tone, "Sweetheeeeeeart, we don't spit in the house? OK?????? That's not right. We don't do that."
Constantly telling...
then asking...
then begging...
and then groveling with your children to "not run in the house" only reinforces their running in the house because you've never expended a calorie of effort to enforce it. Alas why after telling a kid 3 times, I'd make sure the kid would be limping through the house, while no doubt you'd be on your 12th or 13th plea-bargain to get them to come to the negotiating table at the UN where you and other worldly negotiators would presumably use the Socratic Method to hopefully convince your 4 year old to perhaps maybe "jog" though the house.
I could go on, but all the poor parenting techniques that make up the canon of modern day poor parenting boils down to one thing.
You're lazy. You're cowards. You simply do not have the work effort or strength to do the hard part of parenting. You simply lack the spine to provide the desperately needed tough fatherly love and discipline every child needs. Your parenting is not "new" or "progressive" or "advanced" or "on the cutting edge of child psychology." It's lazy, cowardly, shitty slop just like your kids.
The good news is that (as is always with the universe) there is a cost and consequence for failing to raise and discipline your children properly. Some of which society will unfairly bear, but most of which the parents, and even their kids, will bear.
In terms of society, there are negative externalities we must endure due to your crappy parenting. That screaming 2 year old that was sitting in front of me ruined my coffee (and prompted me to write this article). The misbehaving children at church detracted you from the sermon. You couldn't enjoy your dinner because some avant-garde parents don't believe little Jimmy shouldn't be blowing his milk through his straw. And I can't estimate what we're paying in taxes for "special ed" programs for kids that would have otherwise been normal had there been a real dad in the house. But in the end these children go away. These children leave. They are no longer in our lives or households, they are merely fleeting bleeps of annoyances we temporarily endure.
The same cannot be said of the parents. And here a whole new world of hell opens up.
First, you have a household that is intolerable to adults. They are slaves in their own homes, subjected to the tyranny of their children. In many o' houses I visited it is PAINFULLY obvious who runs the show. The entirety of the parents' time is dedicated not so much "to" their children as much as it is dealing with them. Constantly asking what the children want, instantly responding to every cry and whine, reasoning with them as if Jordan Peterson was sitting across from them, and spinning there wheels fetching this or that to end the crying. Alas, since they're incapable of expending the 2 calories it would take to spank a child, they spend millions running around like butlers and servants for 18 years.
Second, holidays and family gatherings are ruined. All it takes is one misbehaving child and Christmas dinner is ruined. Not only is it annoying to the rest of the participants, but it makes adult conversation, bonding, and being a family impossible. You can't converse with your brother Jim about his job because Jim Jr is still in diapers at 4 years old and shit his pants. You can't inquire about how your cousin Amy is doing because Amy Jr is screaming for no reason whatsoever. You can't watch the Thanksgiving football game because, despite their parents' toothless 47th plea, the kids are still running in front of the television, perhaps knocking it over. Ill-reared children raised by incompetent parents make family gatherings a baby sitting operation, not a time to enjoy and love one another.
Third, the parents are haggard. The wear and tear of ill-reared children inevitably takes its toll on the people who refuse to rear them. Remember, a spanking costs 2 calories of energy. Refusing to raise them takes millions more. And it shows in the face, mental health, and even physical health of the parents.
Constantly being sick.
Constantly tired.
Constantly working whether you're at work or home.
And let's not forget the ancillary consequences of being constantly taxed. Your fuses are shortened, you are more prone to blow up at your spouse. And this I inevitably predict will lead to a divorce rate on par with the previous Divorce World Champions - the Baby Boomers (but that's OK, because like avant-garde parenting is good for your child, I suppose you think divorce is good for your kid too).
Finally, the kids themselves.
Understand this trend has been going on for decades. It was not necessarily Gen X that came up with the original idea of
In my day we didn't have ADD, ADHD, Aspergers or Autism. We had a dad that would spank the hell out of you, and if he didn't, the playground bully would. This isn't to say that ADD, ADHD, the Aspergers and the Autisms doesn't exist, but they do not legitimately exist anywhere near the number of people diagnosed with it. Nearly all of those cases you will see either an absent father or a father who was there, but never disciplined his children. And thus, when you release your ill-reared children - spitting, biting, shitting their pants and all - into the school system, to the untrained elementary school teacher's eye, it plainly looks like a mental disorder.
This condemns your children to a world of disillusion, misdiagnoses, and outright lies that will punish them forever.
You have a disease (that you really don't). Here's some drugs.
You're depressed/have social anxiety disorder/are bi-polar. Here's some drugs.
You're not behaving the way a 24 year old female teacher wants you to. You're in special ed.
You could be bi, gay, transgender...at 7. Yes, you can wear a dress Johnny.
You got triggered and have PTSD. You need to see a psychologist. BTW, here's some more drugs.
And thus "special ed programs," pharmaceutical companies, and
Oh...and let's not forget that when your child finally turns 18 and enters the real world he/she is completely incapable of self-supportation, will likely live at home or off of you till they're 30, and are so deluded about the real world they will pay the price of life-long insanity (thinking they have a mental disease or are a "non-conforming pangender queer") simply because you were too cowardly to spank, too weak to say "no" and too spineless to parent. I endured enough hell believing the baby boomer lies that "girls just want a nice guy" and that "any degree is a good degree." I could only imagine how insanely painful and difficult life would be if I was misled to believe I was a "panqueerggendered-transexual" who had ADD, was bi-polar, and never moved out of the house!
I used to think the Baby Boomers were bad parents, and as a generation they most certainly were. But the blatant lack of parenting on the part of Gen X parents belies just how selfish and greedy they are. They never had kids for the sake of the kids. They had kids solely for themselves, as if the kids were mere objects. And this is only confirmed in that most Gen X parents view parenting as a lackadaisical hobby that they half-heartedly work at, as long as it doesn't require work, rigor, toil, discipline, a spine, or effort. It's further confirmed where they put their convenience ahead of the pure hell their absentee-parenting will damn their children to for their entire lives.
I know I give the Millennials hell, but the generation Gen X is raising today is going to make the Millennials look as noble and hard-working as the WWII generation.
Enjoy the decline.
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30 comments:
Thank you so much for posting this. I have had some personal experience with this. I had one kid tell me: "You can't do that!!" I turned around and said: "I just did that!!" The kids were fighting and I told the older one to knock it off. She kept doing it so I pinched her on the soft part of the upper arm. I warned her I was going to pinch her and she actually pinched me first. At the time, I was a crabby 67 year old. But, I got the result I wanted, they stopped fighting. But when I got them home, the parents got on my case for doing it. I said: "But it worked, they stopped fighting." But the parents had the "new age" principles in mind and I believe that their lives will be a living hell when these kids grow up. I believe that the teenage years will be an absolute trainwreck.
Children must be spanked occasionally otherwise they will go out of control. I've use pinching because it is less obvious in public and more painful with no harm to the child. It worked really well in restaurants. Our son would go bonkers and I would reach over and pinch him and he would shut right up. He learned not to mess with me. He had to act like a little man and not a brat.
In my experience, I only had to take the "nuclear option" only a few times while they were growing up. As a result, their childhood was enjoyable and we had little trouble.
What timing. I just saw this the other day...
http://newbostonpost.com/2017/11/09/undoing-the-dis-education-of-millennials/
Feelings outweigh facts, and the Universities, or more correctly the professors that actually want to educate, not indoctrinate, suffer.
Well, for the record, I find football so @#$%& boring that I would be happy to watch little Jim or Amy Jr. knock the TV over. Now that's entertainment!!! Yes, I do find bad behavior in children entertaining. Why? Because I don't have any. I get to leave when the fun is over.
As a "tip of the spear" gen-xer, I chose never to have children and I don't regret it in the slightest. In fact, I have never even been married. I have had lonely old spinsters tell me, "But you are going to grow old and die alone". So? With what I have seen, I prefer that. There is always friends, family and pets. Besides, women start to outnumber men in their upper 30s, which is young to me. When I show up at a social event, it's almost like I am being mobbed. Must be because I am still in shape, have most of my hair and color it...................
If you are close to your children and give them attention, fondness, and time, the withdrawal of attention is enough to correct their behavior. You do not need to hit your children and never should. Reference bomb in the brain - Molyneux.
When I see parents with misbehaving children, I often notice a lack awareness of their childrenz presence. As Aaron wrote they never had kids for the sake of the kids.
Capn, Al,
I have to say I would agree with you. It was how I was raised and how I raised my kids. But....
I have spent a great deal of time in Russia (years) and in all that time I never saw a parent rip into their kids like we might do here. The most stern word I typically heard was -- последствия (consequences). The outcome was usually no dinner or such. No cajoling, for the kids knew it was 'happening' if they continued. I don't know if that is the trick or not, their culture is quite different than the American experience.
I don't want to paint a rosy picture either. Alcoholism is a serious problem among older russian youth.
My father has 2 foster children and the rules are ridiculous. No spanking, no standing with nose against the wall, no soap in mouth, I don't think any punishments are allowed at all. The kids get coupons as rewards for good behavior and that is it.
With my kids, spanking is a rarity because the kids know that it will be used without hesitation.
With my brother's kids, my Sergeant voice usually does the trick. If not, simply going hands on works. No spanking, no physical punishment, just physical force to put him where he's supposed to be. No more attitude from him. At least, not with me. He walks all over his dad.
Physically correcting very young children is only necessary a couple of times for them to get the message that you are dad and they are children. From there basic things like sending a child to his room and meaning it will work well. Most importantly, actual consequences, rigidly applied, will carry a child into adulthood.
All that said, my old pal Bob had a very wise take on child rearing: other than direct safety issues, pay attention to behaviour you want more of and largely ignore behaviour you want less of. Children crave parental attention.
Final point, the people who talk about modelling behaviour - while they are annoying - are not wrong. If a couple is constantly fighting and yelling that looks pretty normal to the kids. If Mum ignores Dad...why would you expect the kids to behave differently?
At a certain age it makes a lot of sense to reason with children but with years of respected authority and consistency behind that reasoning.
Kids take time and effort; but it is well worth it when you can, without even thinking about it, have your kids at the table when adult guests are over and not worry a moment as to their behaviour. Better still, they will make you proud of you have put in the time and effort.
Too many parents are putting their children in daycare. Children are separated from their parents for 10 hours a day/5 days a week. Yes 10 hours a day...most people work from 8am-5pm. That is 9 hours, then you need to drop your child off before you go to work, & pick them up after you finish work. Hence, a 10 hour day for children in daycare. Parents do not want to discipline their children in the little time that have allotted themselves to actually be parents. When you cut back on your expenses, both parents do not need to work full time. If you do not have the time to spend with your child, don't have one (or two or three...)
"Some people are alive ONLY because it's illegal to kill them." -- Anonymous
I think the reason why this is going on is because it's obvious. You can't discipline your kid anymore. Spanking is child abuse. Leave your kid in the car for 5 minutes and Social Services will take your kid away, and then you have to hire a lawyer to get the kid back, and when they reluctantly give you your kid back, then you have to get monthly visits from a social worker so that they can check up on you. You can't discipline your kid anymore without the police looking over your shoulder.
Don't blame Gen-X. Blame the State.
America has the children it deserves. After five generations of assholes, each successively worse than the one that came before, Generation Damned (as we might as well start calling the offspring of both Gen X and Millennials) can hardly have been expected to turn out to be paragons of civilized virtue. We reap what we sow.
A corollary is the new group of dog owners. Usually they get dogs before they upgrade to kids and these dogs are the most unhappy, misbehaved creatures I have ever seen. Dogs are pack animals and need to seek the favour of the alpha and need discipline from the alpha to know their place. A trained, obedient dog who knows their owner is the alpha is a happy dog. Similarly, a loved and well-disciplined child is also a happy child.
One thing that bothers me about parents of really young children is how some of them will threaten a punishment, but never follow through with it. Little Suzy decides to misbehave, Mom threatens to take her home, Suzy pulls back and behaves...for a little while. Then Suzy starts screeching again, the mother threatens the punishment, and Suzy pulls back again. This cycle goes on and on and on, because Suzy knows the threats are toothless. She knows she can screech and misbehave up to a point and that when her mother makes the threat, all she has to do is quiet down and the crisis is over (and then in a few minutes, she can start screeching again.) If Mom had just followed through with the punishment the MOMENT Suzy started opening her zwieback-hole, Suzy would have learned that any kind of disturbance was not an option.
If abortion were legal through the 18th year, none of this would be a problem..
Their behaviors range from constant whining to biting adults.
Considering the society they were dealt and the adults they encounter, can you really blame them? They're not Generation Zyklon for nothin' after all.
But we must travel in different circles. Most of the kids of Xers I encounter (me being an Xer with kids, I encounter many) are a lot better behaved than the Millennials I remember. More inclined to adventure too, though still odd in their own ways. Granted I have a somewhat self-selected social circle that doesn't include many divorced parents, so that probably has a big impact.
I buy produce at a farm market run by a sixtyish farmer. He has a sign posted in his store " one hundred years from now, no one will care about what car or house you lived in. They will care how you raised your children. "
I had tenants who made good money but were constantly using payday loans to meet normal expenses. Every year, the father would empty his 401k, pay the taxes and penalty and go on vacation. He is 55 and has no retirement savings, lives in rentals, and owns nothing but two beater cars. The kids are now in thier twenties and on the same failure fast track.
The state considers a swat on the ass worse than a lifetime of poverty.
Interesting take, Cap.
I am an older Gen Xer with many younger cousins. Getting spanked by my boomer parents was a common event and we all knew the consequences (for getting caught).
A pair of younger cousins were raised "new aged." No physical correction applied to them, but just a "talking too" and perhaps a "go to your room." They were absolute hell to be around even as kids. What was the result?
Most of us worked, started careers, raised famiiles and got on with life. The new aged children (now mid 40s) reared one who got a worthless masters and now lives in a tar paper shack with no utilities and the other finally landed gainful employment to the point he can support himself.
Actions, consequences. Discipline, forethought. So simple a child could understand it. Or as the well known verse goes, "spare the rod, spoil the child."
I wonder sometimes if Stefan's preference for raising children nonviolently has been informed by having a little girl, who have higher verbal skills than little boys.
I'm tired of watching society accept lower standards across all areas of life including parenting. I've been swimming against this current my whole life, and frankly, I'm tired of not feeling the slightest peer pressure to increase my own standards.
Spanking works. Bullies have a positive role to play - both on the obnoxious among us, and for the few of us that decide to take one down. Strong fathers are not optional.
Great post Cappy!
Cappy always writes top-notch, truth spewing, articles. This one, for me, has to go into the top 10 file. Superb in everyday. It's everything you have been thinking or have wanted to say to these 'parents'. Great work.
Absolutely this. One set of my nieces and nephews are God awful hooligans who act badly because even bad attention is better than no attention. The oldest daughter is now a 4th grade lesbian transexual who tries to literally get her teachers fired for not obeying her insanity. Her retarded parents are too busy running 4ks and talking about the latest libfaggery to even notice that their children are and have been desperately crying out for attention for a decade. Oh and they were spanked and hit plenty.
My other set of nieces and nephews are incredibly well behaved and a joy to be around. Everyone knows it. They have never been spanked but instead raised by a stay at home mother who actually gives a shit about them.
Of course then there's the fact that half the kids around are being raised by single mothers.
Spank your kids when you need to. If government thugs show up and try to imprison you, spank them too - at gunpoint, the same way they harass you.
Some you can crush with a hard look. Others you can spank the crap out of and it won't cure the behavior or mark the memory.
Everyone looks for the easy road. The one and done. Hey, you dealt with that problem and it'll stay fixed, right?
Just like relationships with women.
I have the full gamut of these children. Each one is different, and yes, I have four.
Consistency is your watchword, as is courage to discipline. Spank for deliberate disobedience. You manage your children just as you manage your house.
High ceilings, no carpet, no internal insulation make for a loud house, loud children, and then you start yelling because they can't fucking hear you.
Don't take your children out in public, and enforce their good behavior? Don't expect it when you do.
Wife does not support your discipline, or is not consistent? It's no wonder when she has problems.
Public school? Don't whine to me. Homeschool or die.
Kid have their own phone/tablet/computer? Please imagine my descriptive expletives.
Kid watches anything they want on youtube/netflix/cable, etc.? See above.
Don't practice religion? Don't transmit morality in a simple way that gets more complex as they grow? Burden them with non- black and white situations when under 6? Get divorced? Move away from family? Move away from community?
You gotta stand for something when you have children. You have to be a Patriarch. That applies with your wife. That applies to everything you let enter your house. You have to actively moralize and teach what is right and wrong, using the examples around you, every day.
As if having a family ever stops. Cappy, you lack experience in this area and I TL;DR'd your rant because of it.
I think Cappy and Molyneux are glossing over 2 sides of the same coin here, Smart vs Dumb kids. You can reason with, and rarely need to resort to physicality with a smart kid. Molyneux, for all his IQ research, seems to be missing the fact that this does not work on a dumb kid. Most kids are dumb and only understand force. If you are a responsible adult and purposely have kids with a competent partner, odds are you can get away with very little physical punishment. If not, spank away.
Hint: As painful as it is to hear, if your kid doesn’t respond to logic it’s not that smart. A simple test, ask them if they’d like a cookie now or two after dinner. If they say now, you’re going to need some spanking. If they say two latter, you might not.
Anon: About daycare; recently someone called in to Dave Ramsey about that.
And to put it bluntly, Dave got played. Her: ''My husband and I want to have a second baby... But with daycare at $2000 a month for two kids I'm just concerned that we can't afford it...'' Then Dave goes through the regular ''how much do you make?'' question and goes on to deal with it only as a dollars and cents issue.
That's where it went wrong, what the woman was actually looking for - and got - was ''The Dave Ramsey seal of approval'' on daycare. The part about ''not affording kids'' isn't simply financial, it's can you ''afford'' them in your time ''budget'' as well. Both working, both seeking career advancement, both (maybe, though it didn't seem much of a priority for her) trying to pay down/off debt. With all that going on they didn't have enough in their ''time budget'' for kid 1, let alone kid 2.
As you said ''Parents do not want to discipline their children in the little time that have allotted themselves to actually be parents.'' not to mention after that busy day they are beat, they have little energy left to parent, they just want to unwind and catch some TV or unfinished work before going to bed.
There is an additional explanation for the poor behavior and lack of development of today's children. Vaccine injury as a result of the Mercury and Aluminum in childhood vaccinations, which there are many more of and that they receive starting at 9 months of age (when their immune systems are not developed enough for vaccination to begin with). Before anyone here tells me that Thimerosol is no longer in childhood vaccines, I will tell you that it is and that they simply lie about it having been removed from childhood vaccines.
I also don't have kids, and it is fun to watch. 😎
I have skipped the last two family Christmases because my sister is the epitome of "tell them and then tell them again" parenting. It is loud, it is annoying. The kids are great one on one when I take them out or when their grandparents have them but put them in a group with their mother around, it is a nightmare.
I am going again this year because I don't want to miss out on all the family occasions as my parents get older. I doubt I will go every year though. I just can't handle it.
Alternative system.
Wrap a lot of empty boxes for Christmas with the kids name one it and when the kid acts up just toss one of the empty boxes into the burning fire place.
LOL
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