One of my favorite movies is Ice Age. Manny the large, ornery mammoth and Sid the Sloth take this human infant and try to reunite it with its family. On the way of course the kid is crying and they surmise the kid may have filled his shorts. Manny looks to Sid and says,
"You, check for poo."
Sid contests, "Hey, why do I have to be the poop checker?"
To which Manny responds,
"Because bringing the kid along was your idea in the first place. Because you're small and insignificant. And because if you don't I'LL PUMMEL YOU!"
And it's times like these where I think society needs a little more of the stern, fatherly Manny type approach to disciplining children and people and a little less coaxing and motherly/bribing approach.
Why do I say this? Well it seems some teenagers in Britain went and protested at parliament because they weren't getting enough funds for after school activities and other such things.
Their rationale was that if the government just gave them some money for these after school programs and support programs then these children wouldn't get in trouble with the law, start fights and would behave etc.
Thus, I asked myself, SINCE WHEN DO WE START BRIBING PEOPLE TO BEHAVE!!!!!?????
That's called blackmail. "Pay me or I will do something to you that is dislikable. Pay me or else!"
What happened to the days when kids would behave because of the merits of behaving? What happened to the days of understanding that you follow the law and do not break out into fights because society would otherwise degrade and collapse and it would be a reenactment of "Lord of the Flies?" And above all, what happened to the days where parents would instill morals and merits upon their children via discipline????
Alas, that is where the problem probably lies; the parents. I have to keep reminding myself whilst I'm not ready for marriage or children, my generation is currently the highest volume producers of them. And knowing the quality and caliber of Gen X (here or in Britain) it should be no surprise that my generation's offspring is just as screwed up as we were if not, worse.
Furthermore, this attitude that "we are entitled to money and funds for just behaving like normal, responsible kids" can only be the product of a severe dearth of fatherly upbringing.
Notice I didn't say "fathers." I meant "fatherly upbrining." As in spanking. As in yelling. As in Manny pummelling Sid.
As in, "Just you wait! When your father gets home...."
And then the insufferable agony of waiting until your dad came home to righteously pummel you, where that was worse than the punishment to the point you'd contemplate running away.
Not this, "well, it's time for a time out."
Or, "that's it, you are docked 3 behavior points. No Sponge Bob Square Pants for you."
Or you idiotic parents trying to reason with a 3 year old child with your euphemistically name "30 something adult logic."
I want Bill Cosby, full out, "LET THE BEATINGS BEGIN!"
That's what I'm talking about.
Of course, that is taboo in today's society (and a reason why I shy away from having kids). Some idiot congresswoman in California just tried to make it illegal to spank your children. France was kicking around the idea. The goal effectively relegating parents to only positive reinforcement methods to discipline their children.
Some say, "positive reinforcement methods" I call it "bribery." And as an economist I know discipline is cheaper than bribery.
However, that may be the key to this push (predominantly from the left) to abandon discipline and replace it with bribery. I always said, in my years substitute teaching in the public schools, that if I was allowed to discipline the kids, I could handle a class room of 100 students, by myself, and they'd learn and score better than any other class in the school district. But well behaved students don't bring in special education money.
Well behaved children, don't bring in the money for counselors and therapists and consultants that account for the plurarlity of the education budget. Well behaved children don't bring in the extra funds for behavioral modification classes. Additionally well behaved people in general require less and less government spending be it less money spent on the court system, less money spent on the police or less money spent on rehab/prisons or the bevy of other government programs to deal with the problem makers of society.
And that seems to be the enemy; well behaved people. In an insanely cynical pining I wonder if that isn't the goal of the left. To get an entire generation of irresponsible misfits into the population so that there is such chaos and tomfoolery, that it provides them the political rationale to provide trillions upon trillions of dollars in social spending to deal with the problems and , oh, how about that?, provide them with life long employment in the social services sector.
Of course the true victims of this inanity and the refusal to discipline our children will be those poor kids pictured above, living in La La Land thinking they should get paid for just staying out of trouble. Sadly for these youth, without the harsh Manny pummellings, something tells me they'll inevitably all have careers as poop-checkers.
