Is there any evidence to support the argument that we are living during a “Cult of the Child” period? Or is this just one of those “In my day” arguments?
Most of the time the “in my day” argument turns out to be horribly incorrect and rife with faulty recollections.
Is there really any evidence that the “Cult of the Child” encourages lawbreaking or other antisocial behavior on the part of children in the furtherance of meeting their demands for gratification?
I have children, and I see from other parents (both socially and in my line of work) lots of bad parenting, but I have no sense that it is any greater now than it ever was. I do think that many adults feel that they are entitled and extra special, and perhaps this extends to their children as some sort of reflection of that, but I wouldn’t be able to say that that is any different now than a generation ago.
Maybe it’s just me, though. When I was a child, slamming the door always resulted in having to open and close it 10 times. Maybe my mom was just a softie.
I think my dad just didn’t want to have to repeat the exercise too often. The 100 times thing pretty much guaranteed there wouldn’t be a repeat for a while.
Yes, that is what I meant. I don’t know how long the Cult of the Child has gone on for, so I’m not sure that’s why some adults act so badly, but I can’t think of any other reason for the epidemic of asshole behavior. Maybe people have always acted like this, and I just didn’t notice when I was a kid.
There are those who would say that the Baby Boomers were the first to benefit from a Cult of the Child mentality, being raised by parents who had just come through very rough times and wanting to give their children everything and make their lives as easy as possible.
Reminds me of when I worked retail, in a store in a very nice mall. During one Christmas rush, a woman came in with her approx. 7 year old son and asked us to let him use the bathroom. We said no, for many of the same reasons in tdn 's post.
This shining example of parenthood instructed her son to “whip it out and go on the floor, right here then!”, which the kid actually started to do. :eek:
All the while, the lady bitched that no way was she going to stop her Christmas shopping to walk her son to the mall bathroom.
I used that approach with my kids, but my brother-in-law did one better. He told his teenage daughter if she slammed the door one more time she wouldn’t have a door. She slammed it. He removed it. For a month, the girl had to change her clothes in the bathroom. No privacy in her room at all. As far as I know, she hasn’t slammed a door since.
This is my day, and I have nothing to compare it with; I was very recently legally considered a child myself. But I totally agree that we live in a Cult of the Child. I have to dance through flaming hoops to see nipples, smoke tobacco or crash cars into each other on a PlayStation because the responsible adult entertainment I had to wait 18 years to enjoy might ruin poor little Johnny on first sight, turning him into a career criminal because he saw Janet Jackson’s left boob. There was a thread after the Rose Bowl where somebody cried a fuckin’ river because there were ads for a scary movie on during the game. He seriously argued that we needed to censor every minute of television to fit his tastes as to what he was or wasn’t prepared to explain to little Timmy. He apparently leapt out of his couch to shield little Timmy’s eyes, and the kids were all hysterical after the commercial, probably because they saw their dad flip out like a Catholic-school nun experimenting with crank.
:eek: :eek: :eek:
Did you call the cops? Surely you made her pay for carpet cleaning?
So this one time, I was walking down the sidewalk in Newark, when this lady right ahead of me who was yakking on her cellphone just threw her half-smoked lit cigarette on the ground. Littering butts is bad enough, but this lady didn’t even step on it. She just tossed it and kept walking and yak yak yakking.
I picked up the smoldering thing, and was about to hand it to her, when she turned and walked through the revolving door into an office building. So I followed her through the revolving door into the lobby. She was still yakking. (The guard had seen the whole thing and didn’t say anything to me as I walked in holding the lit cigarette.)
I tapped her on the shoulder. She glanced at me and kept yakking. So I stepped in front of her and handed her the lit cigarette. She reflexively took it. I said “I believe you dropped this.” She was absolutely gobsmacked. After a second, she said “Did you see what she just did?” but she said it into her cellphone! Realizing how stupid that was, she looked around at all the people in the lobby, and spluttered “Did you see what she just did? Did you see that? Did you?” Everybody was smirking, but silent. I turned on my heel and started to walk out of the lobby.
Then the guard approached the lady and sternly informed her…
The moms I know have an equal number of complaints about adults who model rude, thoughtless and sometimes illegal behavior in front of their children. Like, oh, breaking simple traffic laws (bicyclists, I’m talking bout you); instructing children that “We always wait for the green light” as adults go zooming past just kind of takes the zing out of the message.
