John Rosemond retires!

This clown. Self-proclaimed child-raising expert. And he’s only semi-retiring. But from here on in, he’ll only be preaching to the converted. So I can do a guilt-free happy dance without his having to die!

“My trusted advisors, including my manager-daughter, pointed out that the demographic I most want to reach does not tend to suffer morning inky-finger syndrome.”

Yeah, I wonder how many of his regular readers were old cranks, way past child-raising age.

“So, I am shifting my energy to developing a Substack and my weekly podcast, one advantage being that those outlets permit me to say what some editors will not permit me to say. Use your imagination.”

IOW, he got called on his BS too many times: citing himself as a source, claiming that ADHD does not exist. And the podcast is called “Because I Said So!” because of course it is.

His final column was a great example of his style. Kid has anxieties; solution is to get her out of the way until she stops being such a drag. “I’ve said all I have to say,” is the key phrase. Because this nimrod seems never to have learned that the best way to help kids is to listen more and talk less.

(Miss you, Guin.)

I – what? He said – for real? REALLY??? People go to him for advice like THAT?

Holy guacamole, I’m having trouble typing this with my jaw banging down on the keyboard. Ye gods and little fishes, that poor kid if the parents actually do what he says.

Unfortunately, there are people who see their children more as investment instruments than as family members. And lately, there seems to be a trend of “I’m not letting you out of arm’s reach, but I also don’t want to see you or hear your voice.” I mean, before Covid I was noticing this, and quarantine certainly didn’t help. But JR’s column has always been aimed at people who had children out of obligation (the Bible says to, y’know) but who don’t like kids and see them as a constant source of irritation. The objective is not to shape their characters; they’re supposed to take care of that themselves. The objective is for the parents to get everything their way, and make all the child/ren’s decisions for them, because adults know everything and anyway, they’re paying for it, or their taxes are. Of course, it’s easier to accomplish this if you break the child’s spirit early. Which is exactly what JR’s methods are designed to accomplish.

In fact, that column is pretty mild compared to the one about a tween boy who was constantly putting himself down, calling himself stupid, worthless and so forth. Rosey’s recommended cure was grounding, plus earlier bedtime, no TV, devices or landline, for however long it took the kid to rack up a thirty-day streak of not making negative comments. No leniency: if he was “good” for 29 days and made a negative comment on day 30, the counter would reset. I wish I was kidding.

But this is the right and proper way to deal with emotional issues, because Rosey’s adults never listened to him. Over and over, he has given (past tense, yay!) examples of how his mom, stepdad, grandma, teachers and whoever else, told him he was worthless, annoying, bad, lazy, stupid, a jerk, useless, and whatever else. The punchline was always, “And it did not scar me for life! It made me the person I am today!” Yeah…it sure did. For one thing, you talk about getting fired from your earliest jobs because “I had a huge problem with authority.” Which is probably the reason he’s self-employed and promotes himself as an expert.

Anyway, I’m not sure everyone who reads his column is currently raising kids. There are probably a lot of people his age who read it just to get their grump on. “Kids these days, yanno? That’s showing them a thing or two!”

This guy’s columns started appearing in our newspaper a couple of months ago, must be cheap to feature. In today’s he wrote with disdain about how therapists are stunting the emotional growth of children by acknowledging all of their feelings, gasp!. One parent wrote the child was made worse after seeing a counselor, with Rosemond nodding that this was the unfortunate outcome of today’s mental health model. Why, some of these “immature” feelings need to be kept to oneself…harumph, harumph.

Child parenting advice straight outa the 50’s’. Reminds me a lot of this guy: james dobson focus on the family - Google Search