Vice and Virture II- Parenting

[elfin_odalisque]

I think exposing someone to a thing they are unable to fully understand is an unnecessary hazard.

Then we'd all better batten down in the bunker - whatever our age - it's scary out there!

 

[dr_mabeuse]

The thesis of the Victorian fellow was that keeping them in ignorance helped nothing.

Besides which, Zoot, when do you stop? At some point you have to release your grip. At some point, they must face the world using their own judgement. You can't be there to the grave for them, steering their decisions. There will come a moment from which their judgement will be the strongest factor safeguarding them.

Well, the point at which the advice stops usually isn't the parents' decision, it seems to me. You can compel them to take your advice until they're 18 or financially independent, and then it's really up to them.

WIth my kids, I've taken the position that honesty on my part is more important than advise. I've never told my kids that pot or alcohol will destroy them because I really don't believe that's true, and if I lie to them about that, then how are they going to believe me when I warn them about crack and heroin? I experimented with both when I was growing up, and I expect they'll do the same. I'd prefer that they respect me rather than they fear me, and that they come to me with their problems rather than hide them from me and lie.

I also don't think I ever punished my kids for their behaviors (though I'm not absolutely sure that's true, especially when they were younger and had to be scared away from things like crossing the busy streets on their own.) My kids are not especially rebellious or manipulative, and I think the shame they feel when they've done something wrong is punishment enough.

I'm very lucky, though, in that my kids are good kids. I worry that I might have done a better job at making them work harder in school, but I was the same kind of lazy student, and I remember how futile my parents' efforts were to get me to study harder. I didn't figure out what school was all about till I was in college.

As I say, though, we were lucky. I know parents - very good parents - who just have difficult kids and have tried everything. If I found out my kids were doing something really bad, like selling dope or committing crimes, I don't know what I'd do. I'd have to do something though.

 

[cantdog]

For me, the time to turn my daughters loose was when they could disagree with me and explain WHY their opinion differed from mine. Of course, I encouraged argumentation up to a point from the time they could talk and asked their opinions on everything for what to have for dinner to who to vote for. I didnt necessarily follow their opinions, but they often surprised me with thoughtful viewpoints from what most people would consider a very early age.

I didn't "turn them loose" all at once either. When they started to demonstrate wise choices about what to eat, that became their decision (subject to an occasional veto). When they demonstrated a grasp of finances, they were turned loose to decide what to do with their own money.

By the time the law said I had to turn them loose, they were already on "a leash" no stronger than cheap thread.

PS: I did follow essentially the philosphy outlined in the essay fragment. I didn't deliberately expose my daughters to drugs sex and violence, but I didn't go out of my way to shelter them from exposure to fictional depictions of them either -- instead, I took the opportunities to discuss the issues -- within the limits of their understanding -- when the subjects came up on TV, in movies or books, and in the news.

Very well said, Harold. Fantastic. Ignorance is no shield, and judgement requires exercise to develop. My kid was given decisions to make just as quickly as possible, and we let them stand, mostly, because at first they were limited ones.

"Do you want the blue one or the red one, honey?"

That's all we let happen when she was three, that kind of limited choice. But it was a real choice, and it stood. We held on to the real decision power until about six, let go from six to twelve or so, and maintained the fiction for some years after that. Advise and consent, sorta thing.

She was actually quite independently running her daily life without realizing how thorough it was for some time. She had such good judgement! She even knew, by sixteen, when she was out of her depth, when she needed our input. And then she'd get it. It was wonderful.

When she went to college she was appalled.

"There are so many stupid people doing completely reckless stupid things!" she complained. "I wish you guys had done it different. I don't get to have a lot of this "fun," because I know how dumb it is. It's not fair, in a way. But let me tell you what Deedee (not her name) did!"

Her roommate was a stark microcosm of the opposite view of parenting. She's had curfews of ten-thirty and eleven in her senior year, and her clothes always had to have approval. When she hit college she fucked everything, did every drug, and so forth. She'd been under the thumb so long that she sprang up once it was removed and committed ridiculous excesses in her new freedom, having near-zero decision-making ability and a lot of pent-up resentment.

You can do it either way. I'm very gratified with my daughter being a sensible adult by fifteen, and being completely suited to the pressures of the world by the time she left home. Deedee's parents probably aren't so happy.

 

[Weird Harold]

Very well said, Harold. Fantastic. Ignorance is no shield, and judgement requires exercise to develop.

You'd think this was just common sense, but so many young adults like "DeeDee" demonstrate that it may be sense, but it certainly isn't common.

My granddaughters are seven and eleven, and my daughter is applying the same principle with them. The elder granddaughter is already running her own life to an extent that many kids don't see until they're 17 or 18.

 

[Seattle Zack]

Well... actually Jack did forget to the add the breeder maggots that can't strap a condom on every now and then.

While the male dominated society thing might not fly... it was an obvious omission.

It does take a sperm to make the whole thing work after all... even if they're lesbian breeder cows and one is REALLY butch; two eggs, a baby do not make.

Sincerely,
ElSol

Nice to see you again, snp, and best wishes to you as well.

Nice also to be placed on another ignore list. Perhaps you can cover your ears and chant, "La la la." I know free speech is so very uncomfortable... maybe we can amend the constitution to take care of that.

This from a woman I fuck occasionally who works at United Way. One of the after school programs she administers, a mother had to withdraw her three kids. Poor thing, she couldn't afford the $50 a month copay for her three kids for the after school care.

Keep in mind, the state (taxpayer) is covering the other $350 a month.

Last week, she gets caught with her two year old strapped into the child seat while she's at a bar. The bartender noticed it on the security cam and called 911. So the cops show up and all. Her 5- and 7-year old?

They're in the trunk.

They had blankets and pillows, so what's the problem? After all, mom's done this many times before, according to their testimony.

Mom blew a .18, by the way.

No doubt, she'll get her kids back. Nice to see she was able to save that fifty bucks a month.

 

[cantdog]

I really don't get what you're on about, Zack; or you either, Op_cit. Did you post to the wrong thread or something?

 

[Op_Cit]

I really don't get what you're on about, Zack; or you either, Op_cit. Did you post to the wrong thread or something?

I always post to the wrong thread, it's what I do... (Some people are good a picking lint out of their navels, others...)

But if you look closely, the point I made was that people tend not to expose kids to certain things because they don't understand how to educate them to properly deal with those things. And the question I posed (in a terribly rough and poorly conceived attempt to connect Zack's point back to the subject) was something like "If one doesn't know how to raise children, why have them?"

(But I really like Zack's position and didn't want him feeling all alone.)

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

I've seen all kinds of college kids over the years... and there doesn't appear to be a strong trend that I've been able to see. If we're offering up anecdotal evidence:

The most mature and informed person I know (who also happens to be the smartest person I've ever personally met) was told much the same things most children are told about drugs and sex and whatnot. It was a childhood with ignorance, essentially, about those things--fairly common. He's a doctor, now, with a family, well adjusted, well learned, well informed. Really quite remarkable, as compared to the college drop-outs I know (and there are plently)... one fellow in particular grew up in a household that preached, pretty strongly, that he should learn to make his own choices and be presented with all his options.

He chose cigarettes at twelve, marijuana at fourteen, meth at seventeen, and has moved on to two kids, a divorce, and drug addiction causing him to flunk out of college by twenty-one.

If I had to pick a model for how I would want my kids raised, assuming how we raise children is a factor in their future... it's the Doc.

 

[cantdog]

If you persist in misunderstanding, then you will continue to make statements at cross purposes to your interlocutors. The difference between the two gentlemen was judgement.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

No misunderstanding.

In the case I was talking about, ignorance was a shield (and pretty effective) and good judgement didn't demand lack of it during childhood. That would be my point. Take of it whatever you want.

 

[Weird Harold]

No misunderstanding.

In the case I was talking about, ignorance was a shield (and pretty effective) and good judgement didn't demand lack of it during childhood. That would be my point. Take of it whatever you want.

Your description, "The most mature and informed person I know (who also happens to be the smartest person I've ever personally met)..." would seem to make the Dr. an anomoly at the the extremes of a statistical distribution. I presume the other example was selected for a similar if opposite deviation from statistical norms?

Everyone is different and good people have been produced in spite of parenting that was less than ideal for their personality and intelligence.

But...

On average, keeping someone completely ignorant of reality, and failing to prepare them to deal with reality, does more harm than good.

There is no panacea that works in every case, and it is incumbent on parents to know their child and shelter or expose them as is best suited to the situation at any particular stage of their lives and development.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

On average, keeping someone completely ignorant of reality, and failing to prepare them to deal with reality, does more harm than good.

Which is besides the point, because we're not talking about keeping people completely ignorant of reality... only ignorant of some things about reality, for some time when they are young, and doing so as a preparation for dealing with reality later, when they are not so young. And as that is what's being talked about, I don't think generalizations about complete ignorance have any real bearing. No moreso than talking about "total disclosure of all facets of reality" has any real meaning on the subject.

However, does shielding them from some things, during their childhood, "on average" do more harm than good? I think that's the real question. I'm inclined to say "no, it doesn't".

 

[cantdog]

And in an argumentative manner, too. Despite which, it seems you have no significant difference of opinion.

Gilded Age kids were raised very differently depending on the family's class. One of the differentiating features of middle class childrearing was the preservation of a darling, childlike innocence. All the Santa Claus fantasies date from the era. Barrie wrote Peter Pan, which explores in an affirming way how fine it is to hold on to the innocence of childhood. The better off the parents, at least until they rose out of the middle class into the ruling classes, the thicker this cocoon of innocence. Elaborate fantasies were brought into childhood, Alice's in wonderland, Owl and Pussycat in the pea-green boat, talking animals, fairyland fantasies, and so on.

I doubt your future Doc was raised in such a way. Victoria is nearly dead. Weird Harold described the mechanism by which he sacrificed the Victiorian joys of having an innocent child. He didn't want his to go into the world blind, and he wished, I bet, to answer questions with accuracy. No one will expect candor and respect from a parent who spins fantasies in response to questions. It makes them look elsewhere for the straight scoop.

 

[Seattle Zack]

That may work in your fantasy suburban middle-class world but I deal in real-world situations, I'm sorry to say.

It's unfortunate when statistics collide with your own sheltered reality:

Children reared in fatherless homes are more than twice as likely to
become male adolescent delinquents or teen mothers, according to a
significant study by two economists at the University of
California, Santa Barbara.

Llad Phillips and William S. Comanor based their research on data from
random surveys of 15,000 youths conducted annually by the Center for
Human Resources at Ohio State University. Their findings suggest that
current proposals to provide tax credits and exemptions for single
mothers and to collect more child support from absent fathers will
have little effect on the problem of delinquency among teenage boys.

"Both measures tacitly accept the father's absence from the home and
seek to ameliorate its consequences by increasing the income available
to mother and child. However, it requires an increase in family income
of approximately $50,000 to counter the father's absence," the
economists wrote in a report outlining the results of their study,
which were presented at the Western Economics Association meeting.

------------
Hmmm maybe dads are relevant after all.

 

[Weird Harold]

I don't think generalizations about complete ignorance have any real bearing.

Without writing a complete day-by-day biography of what my daughters encountered, I don't know how I can get less generalized than the explanation I gave earlier of how I refused to keep my daughters in ignorance or "shield" them from things that arose in their daily lives.

I believe that "sheilding children from things they ren't ready to handle yet" will inevitably result in that child either confronting that thing unprepared, or getting "everything you need to know about ..." in one indigestible lecture.

The "today you're a man and ready to know about sex, but you weren't old enough yesterday approach" is a poor way to deal with educating children, IMHO.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

That may work in your fantasy suburban middle-class world but I deal in real-world situations, I'm sorry to say.

It's unfortunate when statistics collide with your own sheltered reality:

Children reared in fatherless homes are more than twice as likely to
become male adolescent delinquents or teen mothers, according to a
significant study by two economists at the University of
California, Santa Barbara.

Llad Phillips and William S. Comanor based their research on data from
random surveys of 15,000 youths conducted annually by the Center for
Human Resources at Ohio State University. Their findings suggest that
current proposals to provide tax credits and exemptions for single
mothers and to collect more child support from absent fathers will
have little effect on the problem of delinquency among teenage boys.

"Both measures tacitly accept the father's absence from the home and
seek to ameliorate its consequences by increasing the income available
to mother and child. However, it requires an increase in family income
of approximately $50,000 to counter the father's absence," the
economists wrote in a report outlining the results of their study,
which were presented at the Western Economics Association meeting.

------------
Hmmm maybe dads are relevant after all.

Yeah, well without a dad for the entirety of my formative years, I had developed the 40 year old cynicism and maturity in my early teens that served me well with some seriously fucked up personal shit. Maybe I'm extreme end of the bell curve or maybe your statistics are based more on the simple fact that in single parent households, there are economic restraints on how much raising they can do. Perhaps more illuminating on the need for double parent households regardless of sex rather than some mystical dad figure. Especially now that women's lib has made a woman in the workplace a non-aberration.

I'm not sure about the perfect parenting style because frankly I'm not a parent. Freedom coupled with moral guidance and real-time punishment for screw-ups seems to work moderately well, but is it an absolute guarantee? No. Are too tight restrictions and ignorance bad in raising? Yes, it leads to hatred of the parent. I've seen it, it's ugly. Does it make a responsible adult? Sometimes, but also at the expense of the bond between parent and child.

I think the whole thing's a giant crap shoot and no parent knows for sure until the kid has been exposed to the freedoms and possibilities at some X date in the future when every decision is there own and praying they make mostly correct choices and have the maturity to resist the cheap freedoms that tarnish and rust like slutting or drugging out. Frankly, I dread that date in the future when I'll have to knuckle-bite and pray my kids turn out all right and see once and for all if I made it into the "good parent" or "bad parent" column.

 

[Weird Harold]

That may work in your fantasy suburban middle-class world but I deal in real-world situations, I'm sorry to say.

It's unfortunate when statistics collide with your own sheltered reality:

Children reared in fatherless homes are more than twice as likely to
become male adolescent delinquents or teen mothers, according to a
significant study by two economists at the University of
California, Santa Barbara....

I'm not sure who you were replying to, but I can't see where your point is relevant to the discussion.

The issue of single parent families and two parent families is entirely separate from the question of whether children should be sheltered and kept ignorant of "vice." I don't know of any study that compares the amount of "sheltering" that happens in single parent families as compared to two parent families -- altough I suspect that it would reveal very little difference in the intent to "shelter" or "guide" and a good bit of disparity in the opportunity/ability to make the intent a reality.