Have a New Kid by Friday - Dr Kevin Leman [20]
If you are a permissive parent, you need to stand up and be a parent instead of trying to be your child’s friend and make her happy. Being happy all the time isn’t real life, and you’re not being fair to your child if you’re providing a continual Disneyland experience. Without accountability for her actions, your hedonistic little sucker will grow up to be a teenage brat and then an adult who back talks and can’t hold down a job. Will your children always like you? No. But did you become a parent so you could be high on the likeability scale? If so, you are the one who needs a reality check.
The stakes are too high. You cannot back down.
The goal of every parent should be to raise independent thinkers who have a healthy respect for themselves and others. This is extremely important in today’s permissive society, as shown in the following commencement speech. The speech was given by J. Neusner at Brown University in 1981, but it is even more applicable today:
We the faculty take no pride in our educational achievements with you. . . . With us you could argue about why your errors were not your errors, why mediocre work was really excellent, why you could take pride in routine and slipshod presentation. For four years we created an altogether forgiving world, in which whatever slight effort you gave was all that was demanded. When you did not keep appointments, we made new ones. When your work came in beyond deadline, we pretended not to care.
Why? Despite your fantasies, it was not even that we wanted to be liked by you. It was that we did not want to be bothered, and the easy way out was pretense: smiles, and easy Bs.
Few professors actually care whether or not they are liked by peer-paralyzed adolescents, fools so shallow as to imagine professors care not about education but about popularity. It was, again, to get rid of you. So go, unlearn the lies we taught you.4
Parent, how much do you care? How much do you want to be bothered? What kind of foundation are you building for your children? What kind of lies are you teaching through your parenting style? How are you preparing them for the future?
Start with the end in mind, and keep the focus on your relationship, not on rules.
I have friends on all sides of the issue—from permissive to authoritarian—and boy, are you right! Authoritative is the only way to go. I saw the fruits of the other two methods in my work at a public welfare agency for 20 years. I’m glad that I chose the balanced perspective with my own kids. I’m proud of them. They’re now grown with families of their own. And I’m close to my grandchildren. It truly is all about the relationship.
Belle, Texas
You’re right about taking the long view. I can’t believe how fast the time goes. It seems like yesterday that my 3 children were babies, and soon my oldest is going to graduate from high school. Now that I have teenagers in my home, I found your advice about not asking questions extremely helpful. I’d been getting “the grunt,” but now that I’ve shut my mouth, they’re opening theirs. Thanks!
Sharon, Nebraska
Boy oh boy, did I need a reminder of the long view. My wife got pregnant a lot earlier than we’d planned, and we now have twins under the age of 2. Our home went from quiet strolls in the evening to the chaos of toddlers. I was, I admit, an “escapee father.” A month ago it hit me, after listening to you speak, that’s exactly what my father was—an escapee. And when he was home, he was always ordering me around. I didn’t want to be like him, so I didn’t do anything. I’ve now apologized to my wife and told her that I want our family relationship to be a priority. And I’ve asked for her help on that. Thanks for being the reality check I needed.
Jay, Illinois
I’ve been known to say that parenting 6 children (what were we thinking?) is kind of like herding yowling cats. But after listening to your principles, I think our home could become manageable chaos. This was the first time my husband