Juanita - I tried to suggest something similar in the GD thread Are teenagers evil. Best I could come up with quickly was to call them “in some ways second class citizens.”
Your line is spot on. It doesn’t sound the least bit offensive. If anyone is offended by it, I summarily consider them wrong without even hearing their argument.
This story has stuck with me.
About a year ago, I was at Blockbuster and there was a father with two children (about 7 and 9) who was arguing about a late fee on his account (I think it was like $5). My bullshit-dar perked up because it just seemed really obvious that the father just didn’t feel like paying the late charge. He was being really argumentative and just refused to pay it. The BBuster people were being very polite, told him the specific late days of the specific movies, etc. He finally just left in a huff without renting his new movies.
So I am standing there behind this jerk and all I can think of is the big, huge, giant lesson he’s teaching his kids. For the sake of argument, let’s just say that maybe BBuster was wrong – couldn’t he think of a more decent way of disputing it and not doing it in front of his kids?
I have no doubt we’ll be seeing more of the little anklebiters telling people to fuck off and refusing to pay their library fines.
When I worked at Hollywood video I also had to deal with a moron who was argueing then SCREAMING at me to take care of his late fees.
All infront of his youngish children.
As he left the store I called after his kids:
“See kids, that’s what you get when you act like a dick.”
I never saw my manager rip of his manager’s name tag so fast in my life.
Manager? We ain’t got no stinking manager…
Hey when you’re a night closer (3 am baby!) and you cater almost exclusively to the fetish/bondage/drugged up psycho crowd that comes in after midnight you generally don’t deal well with normal people.
Potter-you should post at customerssuck.com
Seriously, I have ADHD, and there is NO WAY my mother would have let me get away with that. If I didn’t listen, we’d leave.
That’s just fucked up.
My guess is too many parents read http://www.tcs.ac
In high school, I worked in a toy store that was right inside a very rich area of town. One day, I was restocking a shelf when a kid near the end of the aisle accidentally knocked something off the shelf. He bent down to pick it up and his mother said “Don’t do that. They have people to do that.” I mean WTF - this kid was good (despite her training of him) and she stopped it.
Of course, there were also the kids that would run around the store knocking things off the shelves (and not by accident) while the parents (or should I call them egg/sperm donors) just watched.
From that TCS site…
What utter and complete bullshit. Teaching a child that there are consequences for acting like an antisocial little bastard is the right thing to do, even if you don’t love it. The alternative is having him/her grow up to be an untrustworthy little bastard, generally.
It’s been my experience that professional people often have the worst kids. Speaking for my generation (born in 1972), a lot of us had stern parents who were cold, emotionally distant, occassionaly harsh with punishment.
A lot of us got educated, resented the coldness, said we’d love our own children to death. I’ve seen my share of folks who have overreacted and gone to the opposite end of the spectrum, completely banishing anger and punishment from their parenting style. Well, now the kid is loved and all, but they don’t have any structure or accountability, and they tend to run wild.
A close friend is completely unable to get angry at her terror of a child - even when she’s about to run into the street! Everything is even-toned and casual, like the mother in the OP. This 2 year old will scratch the face of her baby brother, draw blood, and Mom is mildly annoyed. I’m watching, getting more angry than the mother of the baby.
People! Find a middle ground, please! You can be angry and disappointed with your child without terrifying or humiliating them. I don’t hit my own 17-month-old, but I will grab him abruptly if he doesn’t listen, and he gets the message. Showing nothing but love to your child may be just as harmful as not showing enough. You child is going to take advantage of you and resent the lack of structure. As somebody said, you’re not a friend to your child, you’re their parent! And it’s not all love and happiness, it’s hard work.
Poor/working class parents can often be neglectful, yes. But many of them also grow up in extended families with older generations who know how to raise kids properly. Meanwhile, a lot of upper-middle-class people seem to have lost touch with their family traditions and are wallowing in this touchy-feely bullshit.
I’m babbling, but this is just coming from a father who often gets mad at a child who many view as angelic. Not gonna apologize for having high standards…
I totally agree happaXL. I’ve noticed that the professional/higher class people have the most obnoxious children. I used to wait tables in a well-to-do area and it had hands down the worst children I’ve ever seen. They were little monsters, I had to threaten a number of parents that if they didn’t watch their children, they would have to leave. I work with a woman who doesn’t believe in telling her son “no”. The fuck? This is the same woman who drags her kid with her to staff meetings and such, to the horror of the rest of the staff. The kid is a freakin’ monster. The kicker is, she’s studying for a masters in child development. Scary. Apparently, this is the latest parenting trend. Don’t disipline your child. I cower in fear. :sad:
From my experiences that come to mind (N=2), I think there is the difference of new money versus old money. The family has some friends that have been loaded (and I mean loaded) for generations (real old money). The kids are some of the best behaved kids I’ve ever seen. Then there are some former neighbors. Used to be middle class but then hit it big and became loaded (new money). The parents (and then the kids) were shits. Thought they were better than others (since they could “buy and sell them”). Well, just my obersvations
I worked for Wal-mart for a while (boy, did that suck).
One incident in particular stands out in memory, mostly because it involved a parent getting snotty with me.
“John, sit down! You, miss, are NOT my son’s parent, and it is NOT your place to tell him what to do!”
WHAM!
Kid fell out of the cart because Dad couldn’t be bothered to parent his child. Hit his head REALLY hard, too.
I called a manager over to handle it at that point, but I never did once receive a word of apology.
Wait. Never hears “no.” Is a monster. What’s the connection?:rolleyes:
Shit. She should come to my house and hear the constant litany of "no"s in my not-very-childproofed house. And when 3 in a row don’t work, I’m getting my ass up out of my seat and taking further action. She’d probably be appalled.
You know what I found about parenting? It has very little to do with class or wealth. Rather it’s the bitch factor. Either extreme makes rotten parents. The bitchiest people make the worst parents. But on the other extreme, the NICEST people make the worst parents. Or, the best moms are part saint, part bitch.
Face it, there has to be SOME level of fear. Go too far with the fear and you get kids with no self esteem who turn into bullies. If you don’t go far enough with the fear, you get kids with no humility who turn into brats.
The kids in the OP fall in the latter category.
Reading this, I am reminded of something related that happens to me almost every day. I drive from my house down one of the ‘main’ neighborhood streets, four blocks to one of the city’s main 4-lane thoroughfares. This, my street, has perfectly good sidewalks on both sides. And yet, almost every time I drive these 4 blocks, if I see a person walking down the street, they are almost exclusively walking IN the street. I see this most often with kids, as it’s usually the kids who’re outside, playing and whatnot. Setting the ‘proper’ example for the kids, I also see teenagers and adults doing this. Even toddlers seem to think the street is an extra-big sidewalk that has big toys go rolling down it every once in a while.
This has been a common thing ever since I moved in, nearly 5 years ago. Why do people do this? Is it the thing to do? Are they ALL uniformly stupid? Is it a ‘Hit me so I can get PAID’ thing? I’ve watched parents sitting in their yards move not so much as a muscle as I brake hard to avoid steamrolling a child running out into the street in front of me.
Like I said, I don’t get it.
Reminds me of something that happened to a friend of mine and his girlfriend (also a friend) not long ago. Both their cars were parked in the driveway at his house, as they typically were: his eagle talon up front, her pickup truck in back, closer to the street. They always parked this way b/c she had to leave for work earlier. One Saturday morning they hear some odd noises in driveway: twang-plack; twang-plack; twang-plack. When they went out to investigate they couldn’t believe their eyes. One of the neighbor kids was bouncing rocks off of the pickup, into the talon. The twang was from the sheetmetal hood on the truck, the plack was from the rock hitting the rearwindow or the plastic bumper of the talon.
Alan went and talked to the kids father, an Army colnel, who promptly took care of the situation. He then apologized and explained that the kid’d mother and “new daddy” had joint custody, and they didn’t believe in discipline. Apparently it always took a week or two to get the kid to behave again after he’d been with them. According to my friend that kid didn’t cause any more problems for the rest of summer. I just feel bad for his mom’s neighbors.
Damn! I’ve gotta agree. I’d pay extra to live in a neighborhood festooned with inverted banjo-playing preteens in every tree. Very surreal. Just the visualization tickles me to death.
I think a poor parenting skill is to give your young child too many options.
When I discribed the following example to a friend who is also a psychologist, but a clinical one, she couldn’t understand what my beef was!
I was in a shopping centre (mall) food hall and I saw a mother ask her 3/4 year old what she wanted to eat? There must have been about 20 stalls to choose from, the majority of which were high fat/sugar foods.
As a child I was given choice but not that much at that age - it would have been more like, would you like a ham or cheese sandwich. I don’t think a child of this age can make good choices with so many options, the adult should know this and limit the choices.
Great post. Simply put:
CHILD != ADULT
I reminded of an incident at work. Generally, I spend a lot of time in the Kids’ area. I try very hard not to order the kids around, but sometimes I have to say something.
THis one child was climbing on the bookshelfs, and I told him to get down. He gives me this panicked ‘I’m stuck’ look, so I (very reluctantly and carefully) give him my arm to hold while he climbs back down.
As soon as he is down, Mom comes up abnd says “Did that lady tell you to do something? (child nods) Well, you don’t listen to her. You go back to playing and having fun.” Excuse me? The kid was about a minute away from falling and hurting himself. I was merely helping him and protecting my employers from a nasty lawsuit.
Fortunately, the woman siad nothing to me as I probably would have had some choice things to say to her.
“It takes a village to keep your neighbor’s kids from vandalizing your other neighbor’s car.”