Deborah made quite a point that it started with a physical problem: Nancy was deprived of oxygen at birth, and had to take phenobarbitol as an infant. She claims to often have been shrugged off by doctors, who insisted that the problem was purely behavioral, and the solution was to hug her more, or less, or give her vitamins, or be “firm” with her, or anything other than treat the problem at the source, which very probably was some kind of brain damage.
What I find amazing is that the dysfunction did not, in fact, spread to the other two children. Nancy was straight-up abusive to Suzi, and sometimes David as well, and both of them became very familiar with the short end of the stick. I well remember the account of Suzi having anxiety attacks when it came time to submit her college applications. Living with a disturbed person is not. easy.
When not grading nationally standardized writing tests at home for a tidy some, I write articles for professional publication. I hope to have a book proposal in front of publishers by the end of the year. I am happily married to a hard working, caring man who I adore. Together we have a lovely house in the suburbs and a darling young daughter. I think most people would consider me reasonably successful in my mid-thirties.
To this day my mother takes pride in my accomplishments. That irritates me. Not only did she have absolutely nothing to do with my verbal ability; she actively pushed me away from academics. As a young girl I was forever on the receiving end of her cruel taunts. From early adolescent on her constant mantra was, “get your nose out a book,” and, “get a job.” She told me no man would ever love me because I wasn’t very pretty and preferred to read rather than spend time learning to cook and apply makeup. She called me a walking dictionary and spent hours on the phone with her friends listing my many obvious shortcomings.
When I came home one day and told her I’d scored a 690 on the verbal SAT (the second highest in the school according to the principal) her only comment was, “I guess you think you’re smarter than the rest of us now, huh?”
Not a week passed that didn’t have at least one three hour, ego destroying vicious screaming match with her over some minor transgression such as leaving my shoes in the kitchen. I knew how long the emotional abuse lasted because I remember staring at the clock, marching from room to room, praying her voice would finally give out. I grew up terrified of what she’d say or do next. She made an awkward adolescence even more unpleasant and in some fundamental way destroyed much of my ability to trust people.
I have made my final peace with her today. But I hate how she talks to friends all these years later! Instead of recounting my faults she takes pride in my accomplishments. That would be nice but she then goes on and on about how she pushed me to learn, always encouraged me to write and on and on in self praise of her own greatness as a mother. She had not one damned thing to do with how I learned how to write well or why I can read very fast. It literally took me five years to trust my husband because of her. I remember cringing when I broke a glass because I expected him to yell at me for my clumsiness. I can still hear her voice in my nightmares sometimes.
I think that it all depends on the circumstances. Many parents do the best they can. But others have only themselves to blame when their child is still living at home at thirty or unable to hold down a job or turns to drugs. Some of us manage to avoid being losers despite parental influence. And some truly lousy parents would do well to remember that.
Interesting, although I would put living in a safe neighborhood, sending your kid to a good school and ensuring financial stability firmly in the camp of “things parents do.” When they don’t get done, it’s a parent who won’t live within a budget, won’t save up a down payment, won’t learn skills to get a better job, etc. Or won’t invest time or money to put the kid in a better school, figuring the default is a big enough hassle.
On the other hand, my personal experience doesn’t really put those things as having much influence on outcome. I think my family may be filled with those 20% outliers.
One thing important to realize is that not all kids growing up in the same family have the same upbringing. In **Shagnasty’s ** example, perhaps the older son got to fill the role of “perfect son,” the daughter got to fill the role as “perfect daughter,” and when the younger son, Brian, came along, those roles were already taken, and the only role for him was younger kid being compared to Mr. and Miss Perfect. (This is pure speculation on my part, to illustrate a point.)
So anyone who can’t afford to buy a house in the suburbs and send their kids to private schools is by default a bad parent? Wow, how sad that the vast majority of the world’s children are saddled with such worthless monsters. :rolleyes:
People have inherent personality traits. I don’t think that you can *make * your kid smart, or funny, or curious, or passionate. What you *can * do is nurture these qualities where you find them, discourage undesirable behavior, and try to influence their worldview. Teach them to value education, and hard work, and independence, and kindness by showing them that *you * do. I think entirely too many people talk the talk without walking the walk.
Parenting is hard, and tiring, and has to be done in addition to everything else we do. At the end of the day, it’s easy to lecture, and hard to demonstrate. But if you want your kids to value education, read to them, read with them, and make sure they see you reading for pleasure, early and often. Take a class, even if it means they have to make their own dinner a couple of times a week.
If you want them to value hard work, don’t come home and bitch about your job. Tell them what you did that day, and how you got it done, and why what you did is important and/or useful in the larger scheme of things.
If you want them to value independence, you have to demonstrate independence, and allow them independence when they earn it, and take it away when they abuse it.
If you want them to value kindness, you have to be kind to others, and offer them the same opportunity. Ask the clearly confused tourists huddled around the “You Are Here” map if you can help them find something. Offer an old person your taxi. Help that woman with the four small children unload her groceries, and return the shopping cart for her. Make Toys for Tots shopping the official start of the Holiday season.
The things you do every day are what your kids consider “normal”. You’re teaching by example all day every day, so be aware of what you’re instilling in them.
You’re seeing a value judgement where none exists.
It would be the same as if I said “Studies show that the biggest factor in whether people had enough money for retirement is whether they are college educated, saved regular amounts each month and made investments in the stock market” and you come in and retort with “Oh, so I suppose we should just sterilise those who didn’t go to college and have less than $100,000 in their IRA accounts huh?”
It’s a complete non-sequitur.
Well, heres the thing. If Judith Harris’ data is to be believed… none of that works. If you regress for genetics and socio-economic status and all that jazz, all of this stuff about kindness and independance at best accounts for 10% of the variance in their future personality and success.
But I actually wouldn’t say what I said was completely free of a value judgment. I didn’t say private school and I didn’t say suburbs. If a parent is raising a child in an **unsafe ** neighborhood and sending the child to a **bad ** school, and not trying to change that, why not judge that negatively? Every good parent I know would make it a top priority to improve those circumstances.
If the parent is trying to change those circumstances, but doesn’t succeed, I wouldn’t judge that morally, but nevertheless the kids may well fail to thrive as they walk through dangerous streets to and from an overcrowded, underfunded school every day. Society has some responsibility, too.
**Auntie Pam ** has hit the finger right on the nail! Listen closely, people, for I am going to give you the secret key to successful child-raising. I will not charge you for this (although some people have made tons of money by selling grossly inflated versions of what I’m about to tell you.)
The key to successful child-raising is: Treat them like people.
That’s it. Treat 'em like you treat other people. You don’t treat the adults you know like they’re all identical. Some guys are jokers; you laugh and talk with them. Some are fussbudgets; you humor them and make sure they have as little to worry about as possible. Some people are easy to get along with, some just take more work. Kids are people, too. Treat each of them as the individual he or she is. One-size-fits-all child raising guarantees that you’ll go awry sooner or later.
Yes, it’s hard and it takes a lot of work and devotion. That’s why people who are rigidly religious and relentless in “pursuit of excellence” can produce some real monsters. Developing only one set of standards by which you raise your children is a lazy way to be a parent, as bad as a person who sets no standards. A parent who doesn’t take time to know his or her children as the individuals they are is just as bad as the parent who indulges or ignores the child.
Razorette and I never did any book-learnin’ before we raised our boys. But at every step of the way, we asked ourselves, “What is the best thing for this boy right now?” The answer to that question was almost never the same thing twice in a row. Sometimes it took a lot of figuring to come up with the right answers, and more than once I sat down with one of my sons and said to him, “I made a mistake, and I’m sorry. I’m not very experienced, but I can learn, and I’ll do better.” Not very often, of course – it’s not like I was a total screw-up. But when we were wrong, we said so.
This I agree with. Sorry, Harriet. Apparently I’m quick to take offense when I’m insufficiently caffeinated.
Shalmanese, I’m *not * familiar with Judith Harris’ data, and I find it wholly believable that people to a large extent simply are who they are, but that doesn’t mean that it’s okay to just throw your hands up and go with God. (Not that I’m saying that’s your philosophy.)
Like Auntie Pam and Sunrazor said, there’s no substitute IMO for taking the time to actually *know * your children as people, which will go a long way toward helping you to parent them appropriately.
And I firmly believe that children will likely emulate what they consider “normal”, which for a kid, is what they live with and know, and what they learn through observation. Leaving aside moral issues, if you’re a person who washes the dishes right after a meal, your kids probably will too, when they grow up. If you fold the towels a certain way, or recycle bottles and cans, or only buy a certain brand of tuna, they’re likely to do the same when they grow up. So why is it hard to imagine that the more important habits that you impress upon them through example are less likely to “take”?
Obviously there’s no foolproof method for raising good people, or thankfully, for raising bad ones. Sometimes you do your best and it’s not enough. But that’s no reason not to do your best.
Once, when I was about 13, I complained to my parents that my youngest brother was the only one not required to do any housework. At his age, both myself and middle-bro had been making our own beds for two years, for example. He still hadn’t made it once. Both bros looked thoughtful and nodded. Li’lbro said “I guess I oughta start, actually”. Dad said “oh what next, complaints that Middelbro gets after-school tutoring and you don’t?” I said “no, because he needs that extra help.” Middlebro looked a bit surprised, Lilbro nodded enthusiastically. Mom exclaimed “oh, I’ll be! They’ve got a distributive concept of justice!” Discussion ended there, as I was trying to warp my brain around that line.
It took me a couple years to digest the line, but yeah, we did. There’s a difference between “equal” and “identical” - anybody you’re in charge of (children, students, subordinates) oughta get equal treatment, not identical! Sadly, most people seem to have problems with this concept.
