BECAUSE I’M THE MOMMY, THAT’S WHY!
This nostalgia piece, blinking in from cyberspace, implies that parenting, like so much else in life, was better in the past: fewer worries, fewer hassles, better discipline, clarity of expectations and much more fun. Baby Boomers describe their childhoods as healthy, while their grandchildren bask in the pale glow of screens. As substack reader Annette Kimball commented, “Growing up in the 50’s we LIVED outdoors !!”
In this latest installment of Good Past, Bad Present, discipline has been replaced by understanding, peace, love, logic, a positive orientation, and non-judgementalism. Is there anyone left in America who believes that reasoning with children, respecting their points of view, and acceding to their wishes, is more effective than laying down the law and sticking to it?
Arguing or reasoning with children generally leads nowhere. Counselors tell us to allow children to have their say. OK. We should listen to their points of view -once. But at what point does having their say devolve into arguments and shouting?
Mom: You can only have your phone for fifteen minutes.
Mary: Why?
Mom: Because it numbs your brain.
Mary: How do you know?
Mom: I just know.
Mary: Jessica’s mom let’s her use it all day.
Mom: Well, I’m not Jessica’s mom, in this house you —
Mary: I hate you.
I saw a nicely crafted sign on a relative’s wall.
I’m the mommy, that’s why!
When I supervised student teachers at the University of Northern Colorado, besides evaluating and suggesting teaching methods, we discussed discipline. Discipline maintains order; order is necessary for education to take place. You are the adult in the room. You deserve respect. If even one kid is talking while you are presenting, that’s one too many. “Look at it this way,” I told the student teachers, “what would you do if a student walked into class half naked? You wouldn’t ignore it; you would have to do something. Similarly, if a kid interferes with education in your class, you must take action. Ignoring it encourages more of the same.”
Education requires discipline and order.
The same can be said for parenting.
For the military.
For competitive athletics.
For work.
For life.
Twenty-five hundred years ago, Confucius recognized that an orderly society is based on five interpersonal relationships. In each relationship, one is superior to the other.
1. Ruler and subject
2. Father and son
3. Elder brother and younger brother
4. Husband and wife
5. Friend and friend
Those on the lower end of these relationships are expected to respect and obey their superiors. Younger siblings and friends are expected to respect and obey older siblings and friends. Sometimes obedience should be absolute. Children must always respect and obey their parents, even into old age. Similarly, the Ten Commandments does not order you to love your parents but to honor them.
If everyone meets their responsibilities, says Confucius, society will be harmonious, stable, peaceful, and orderly. This does not comport with today’s egalitarian mind-set; it comports with reality. If we are all equal, then nothing gets done. Every human organization has a clearly defined hierarchy, with a clearly defined leader: chief, boss, manager, team captain, chairman, CEO, president, Chief Justice, Speaker of the House, Majority Leader, king, pope, dictator, emperor, sachem, general.
It’s part of the natural order of life on Earth. Most creatures establish male hierarchies to determine who mates with the best females. This is true of moose locking horns, hippos opening their gargantuan mouths, lions, apes and even birds. Jackdaw males who have, well, bird brains, establish clearly defined hierarchies, after which, they mate for life and the females assume the status of the males. One observer watched a courageous ale Jackdaw who left the flock. When he returned, he took on the head male and defeated him, thereby becoming number one. He chose as his mate a bedraggled, left over female who acceded to the throne and took on his number one status. Now that she was Queen, she pecked, intimidated and chased the other females. The Jackdaws may have had bird brains, but they all understood the hierarchical order of their flock.
Nature wants order, so do we.
Around twenty-three hundred years ago, Plato saw danger for a society in which parents relinquish control.
The parent falls into the habit of behaving like the child, and the child like the parent: the father is afraid of his sons, and they show no fear or respect for their parents...Generally speaking, the young...argue with... [their elders] and will not do as they are told; while the old, anxious not to be thought disagreeable tyrants, imitate the young and condescend to enter into their jokes and amusements.
The powers that be in the twenty-first century, would drop Confucius and Plato into Hillary Clinton’s “Basket of deplorables,” or as part of the “male patriarchy”. They would be written off as oppressors. Insensitive. Tyrannical. Neanderthals.
"Oh! oh," says a little butterfly in a book for pre-school through third grade. "Looks like she [a little girl is crying] got a spanking." On the next page the girl is pictured spanking her doll. "Who taught her to do that?" asks the butterfly. "Could it have been Daddy and Mommy?" Left out of this little morality tale is that maybe the little girl deserved to be spanked. Maybe she hit another girl, or stole something, or disrupted class. Missing is the message that in a civilized society bad actions require legitimate consequences, and the best time to start teaching right from wrong, is childhood. Instead, they teach impressionable pre-school children that the little girl is an innocent victim of bad parenting.
Even worse, they demonize parents.
In Oregon third graders are asked, "How many of you ever wanted to beat up your parents?" In a Tucson high school health class, students were asked, "how many of you hate your parents?" In Colorado, students are asked, "What is the one thing your mom and dad do to you that is unfair?" A book on values clarification tells teachers to ask, "What disturbs you most about your parents?" This is not values clarification; it’s indoctrination. It plants negative thoughts in children’s heads. It encourages conflict in families. There is nothing positive about defiance, arguing, disobeying, disrespect, challenging, screaming, tears and tantrums. The failure of parents, schools and misguided counselors to create a world of order, morality, reason, logic and discipline, is a sure sign of societal decline.
The deterioration of discipline over the last sixty years, is another manifestation – as readers of CRISIS know - of the seventy-five-year transformation, from order to this brave new world.