I'm about to be a father.
It's imminent, impending, about to become reality, factual, for sure. Even as I type this, Agent M2 (Mrs. M) is sitting behind me, rubbing her belly like some female Aladdin who desperately wants the six-pound Genie OUT of her.
So naturally, my thoughts turn to childrearing.
Dear God, please don't let me become one of those people who suddenly throws away everything they believe in to become some textbook Ward Cleaver wannabe in an effort to raise the Perfect Child.
A cousin of mine used to be a fan of South Park, horror movies and general off-colour humour. Now after the birth of his children (three at the time of this writing-- but thank god, he's figured out what's causing it), he thinks South Park should be taken off the air in case one of his children might SEE it.
To which I patently told him to stuff his head in a toilet and flush repeatedly.
What is it with people-- new parents, I mean-- who suddenly decide that everything they used to like is just not fit for children's consumption? And by extension, that you shouldn't be allowed to view it either? It's not enough for them to ban their own children from watching South Park, for example-- the show should be taken off the air completely so that no other child could possibly watch it and damage their fragile little psyches.
Now mind you, I'm reasonable. I'm not gonna show my kid The Exorcist when they're still in diapers. But do I think the movie should be taken off the shelves? HELL NO!
Y'wanna know why? Because it's not the world's responsibility to take care of my child; it's mine. I'm not about to go whining that some show on TV was not suitable for children and should be taken off the air, when I'm the parent who should have been in control of what my young, impressionable offspring was watching. Yeesh.
You have your freedom to do whatever you want under the law, and I'll have mine, thanks. Which includes child-rearing. And that's not a freedom, that's a responsibility. God, why does it seem that so many of today's parents are afraid of that word? YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT CHILD, and its interaction with the world. What goes into its brain, what comes out of its mouth.
Likewise, if your kid is running around annoying the hell out of every adult in the room, it's also your responsibility to teach that kid some manners. Inside voice, honey. Like that.
But that's not really where I want to go with this rant. No, this rant is about my fear of how children today may turn out in the future; to illustrate, I'd like to post one of those "email lists" that make the rounds, which started me thinking about this whole childrearing deal:
"As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
"Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special
treat.
"Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint.
"We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and
when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. (Not to mention hitchhiking to
town as a young kid!)
"We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors.
"We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode
down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the
bushes a few times we learned to solve the problem.
"We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were
back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No
cell phones. Unthinkable.
"We played dodge-ball and sometimes the ball would really hurt. We got
cut and broke bones and broke teeth and there were no law suits from these
accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame but us.
Remember accidents?
"We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned
to get over it.
"We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank sugar soda but we were
never overweight.........we were always outside playing.
"We shared one grape soda with four friends, from one bottle and no one
died from this?
"We did not have Play Stations, Nintendo 64, X Boxes, video games at all,
99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cellular
phones, Personal Computers, internet chat rooms,............... we had
friends. We went outside and found them. We rode bikes or walked to a
friend's home and knocked on the door, or rung the bell or just walked in
and talked to them. Imagine such a thing. Without asking a parent!
"By ourselves! Out there in the cold cruel world! Without a guardian. How
did we do it?
"We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and
although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes,
nor did the worms live inside us forever.
"Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who
didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.
"Some students weren't as smart as others so they failed a grade and were
held back to repeat the same grade.....Horrors. Tests were not adjusted for
any reason.
"Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. There was no one to
hide behind. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard
of. They actually sided with the law, imagine that!
"This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem
solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years has been an explosion of
innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure,success and
responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all."
Whoever wrote this is bang on the money. The paranoia-- and I'm not exaggerating when I use that word-- of parents today over their precious little children falling over dead from the slightest germ, cut or wound; using interdictory time-outs instead of a good old-fashioned spanking; passive psychological babble instead of a well-placed "No, you may not."
What is UP with that? I don't WANT that for my kids. I don't want to become one of those parents who communicates with their kids out of a magazine rather than actually listening and perceiving my child as an individual. Rewards for good behaviour, consequences for bad. It used to be fairly simple. But now...now?
Now everything is weighed, analyzed, sterilized, and wrapped up in a bright white package with a neat little label rather than actually perceived and dealt with. It's like no one trusts themselves to be parents any more!
Folks blame the Internet, which as we all know contains nothing more than porn, and most of that is kiddie porn. So we have to get rid of that. Oh! Oh! And video games; they're too violent so they have to vanish completely. And hey! Don't forget those objectionable books. To Kill a Mockingbird has black people depicted as slaves in it. That's gotta go.
In fact, why don't we just cut to the chase: We don't want anything going into our kids' heads that we didn't put there ourselves. Only we're too busy to be doing all the putting. At the same time as we're trying to POSSESS the kids, we seem to want someone else to teach them everything-- but only in a way in which we approve!
Don't even get me started on the hamstringing emasculation of teachers in our society. I swear I want to blow up the PTA. Not the board of education, just the parents.
And this is a world I'm entering?? I'm going to be One Of Them? Please GOD, no. Don't let me become like them. Let me have my child and love my child and most importantly ACCEPT that my child will occasionally learn, do or say things I don't like, and let me deal with it as an adult. Because, and this is most important... in my relationship with my future child, I WILL BE the adult.
If only all the other parents were, too.
Posted by Michael at February 09, 2003 02:40 PMAdd to that the old-fashioned idea that the job of a parent is to put yourself OUT of a job someday.
I see these twenty-somethings still living at home with the Mom and Dad safety net because they can't handle the Great Big Scary World that they've always been protected from and I thank MY parents, whose goal in raising us was to produce self-sufficient, independent adults. While I'm their son, I'm not their CHILD, and haven't been for many years.
There was no misunderstanding in my house that as soon as I was eighteen I was to move out of it. (Unless I was in college or university. When I did go back to school Dad and I built a basement suite and Mandi and I each lived there rent-free during our conveniently-non-simultaneous college years.) By today's standards that makes it sound like we FOUGHT and they wanted to be rid of me, but that wasn't it at all. At eighteen their child-rearing job was over because it was SUPPOSED to be over, and while they continue to be my parents they no longer PARENT me.
(Due to circumstances, some unforeseen, their child-rearing job turned out to be over well before I turned eighteen, but there was nothing wrong with THAT either.)
Nowadays I ask them for advice, but I very rarely ask them for help. Honestly I don't NEED any. And many of their friends have children almost my age who STILL need Mommy and Daddy to protect them. Feh.
Posted by: Mike on February 9, 2003 03:14 PM"Because it's not the world's responsibility to take care of my child; it's mine."
And that one sentence, right there, is something many many MANY parents need to look at in this anal, over-protective, lawsuit-happy society.
Great rant Agent M. Just great.
Agent A.
PS - As long as I'm a fellow-agent... there is no way I will allow you to become one of "THEM". ;) So I guess I'll just hafta be objectionable now and then. *snicker*
Posted by: Agent A on February 9, 2003 04:14 PMI had to comment on this, as I am the new mom of a 7 week old son....
I agree...it is the parents' responsibility to raise a child, and not the world's. Yes, some things have changed since we were kids...I would NEVER let my son go without a seatbelt, but only because I want to keep him safe. I also ALWAYS wear my seatbelt, so it's not a new idea to me.
I also agree that too many parents have gotten paranoid when it comes to their kids. Drinking out of a hose? I still do that myself! :o) There is nothing wrong with it, or failing a child in school, or the occasional spanking. It's having limits on some of this...a spanking isn't bad, but beating your child is. An occasional spanking is not beating...big difference. (think I stirred up enough contreversy with this?!? lol)
Since I have had my son, yes, some ideas I previously had have changed, but not to the point where I am so paranoid I give them all up. If his binky/pacifier (or whatever you call it) drops on the floor, I don't run to sterilize it. Life is not sterile, or always safe, and I can only do what I can to protect him while he's young, and teach him to watch over himself when he can. I still watch South Park (even have while breastfeeding him!) and all the shows I would prefer he doesn't see. My 2 older stepsons know that South Park is a grown up show, and they are not allowed to watch it. As parents, we can restrict their viewing. Should it be taken off the air? No. If more parents "did their job" as parents, instead of relying on others to do it for them, maybe there wouldn't be so many problems in the world now?
I think as long as you stick to your instincts on parenting, you will be fine! There is no such thing as a "perfect parent" and there never will be. I think we just do the best job we can, and don't second-guess everything. A true caring parent will act out of love for their child, and I think that is the best "guide" for parenting.
Hopefully I haven't rambled on too much, and haven't "stirred the pot". This is only my opinion, and I'm sticking to it. :o)
Amanda
Posted by: Amanda on February 10, 2003 11:24 AMGreat rant. A couple of things, though:
1. I don't think the blacks in To Kill a Mockingbird were actually "slaves" -- it's a 20th century story. Cite Huckleberry Finn instead: not only are the blacks slaves in that one, one of the main characters' names is prefaced with the "N word".
2. Parenting magazines, on the BG Evil Scale (TM) are nowhere near, say, Teletubbies or that purple dinosaur thing.
3. Those kids of our generation who were actually thrown from the back of those pickup trucks, or got sick and died from sucking on a lead-painted crib rail can't actually speak for themselves on this -- we're lucky. When I look back on some of the stuff we did without telling our parents, I'm amazed that I'm here to tell the tale, and that I'm not on the back of a milk carton to this day.
So sure, proceed with caution, without smothering the kid and creating a great big ball of paranoia. That's what I say. Being protective is your responsibility. Being overprotective is your option, if you want to pay for years of psychotherapy later on.
Oh, and my kid won't be allowed to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer until she's old enough to understand right from wrong, fantasy from reality, and satire from other forms of fiction.
Cheers,
BG
Proud daddy of MiniBG, less than a day old. Talk to Agent CK for more news.
Good rant. I have pondered this myself many times since I became a parent ten years ago and watched others parent.
I came to the conclusion that the difference between our generation and our parents and previous generations is where we get our questions answered and where we get input on how to raise children. In yesterdays societies you were often close in proximety to your parents and family. It was not just you that parented but the whole family. They never bought a bookshelf worth of books that told you how to parent. They had family giving you advise along the way.
Nowadays familys are usually separated by distance. Families are don't depend on each other like they used to do.
I know it doesn't all come down to that, but when I had my first one I was one of those first time parents. You can pick them out a block away. Then one day it suddenly occured to me that I couldn't do it by a text book. I had to start chilling out and stop worrying so much and just go by my instincts.
Posted by: Shell on February 10, 2003 12:36 PMOh *SURE* BG. You just *HAD* to bring Buffy into this, didn't you? Sheesh. ;) (Even if it was a valid point...snicker)
Can we avoid further mention of that "purple dinosaur thing"? Otherwise, I may hafta hunt down that old copy of Doom, and apply that purple-dinosaur patch, just so I can shoot it. ;)
I guess, from what I'm seeing from the parents and parents-to-be that there is a line between protective and OVERprotective.
Beyond that, I think I'll refrain from comment... as I don't have kids, and I'm not expecting one anytime in the near future. ;)
Congrats to Agent BG! I just got email this AM that he and MrsBG are the proud parents of Rebecca Lynn, who came into the world yesterday afternoon. Chocolate cigars for everyone! :D
Now we just gotta wait on AgentM2 to introduce AgentM3. ;)
Agent A
aka Agent CK
(I guess that would make me Agent ACK?)
Very sleepy now. Becca kept us up very late. Agent M, best of luck on the whole baby thing -- I won't ask if he/she has arrived yet, as I know how annoying that can be *snicker*
Agent A, thought that might be you, just from the writing style -- but decided to leave you incognito if that was indeed your wish.
B rules. You know whereof I speak.
BG
Posted by: Agent BG on February 11, 2003 01:17 AMIncognito? Nah! ...although I may have to stick with "Agent ACK". :D
I'll just add (seeing as AgentBG *DIDN'T* ask) that as far as I know this AM, Agent M3 has yet to appear. However, I understand that Agents M & M2 now know what SEX Agent M3 is.
I'll leave that for Agent M to announce. ;)
B rules? Cult. Cultcultcult. ;)
Agent A(CK)
Posted by: Agent A on February 11, 2003 12:38 PMAll you need to be a great parent is a gun and a scapegoat.
And maybe some liquour to help pass the time.
Posted by: CH on February 11, 2003 07:39 PMCH -- aka the Crimson Hug'Gee-- is one of those people who has chosen not to be a parent, in case any of you were wondering. :)
Mind you, according to him I will have no life for the next 18 years or so, no cool car (in fact I apparently MUST own an SUV or minivan), and generally lack in coolness. I hope to prove him wrong. :)
BG, you are the most erudite and well-read poster on the board to date. I am in awe of your cranial capacity and diction.
To be honest, I can't remember if the black people in Mockingbird were slaves, but they were most certainly second-class citizens.
However, you're correct-- Huckleberry Finn would be a better book to cite for that, except that to my knowledge it's never been attempted to ban Huck from the shelves.
And no, there's no point in kids watching Buffy until they've seen all the other genres and read all the books on which the humour of Buffy is based.
Sure, it may be a cult, Agent ACK... and how's that DVD collection of Star Trek coming? Just got Season 6 of Next Gen on DVD, didn't you? And HOW many versions of the Trek uniform do you have...?
Don't get me started!
Agent M
Posted by: Agent M on February 12, 2003 10:57 AM>BG, you are the most erudite and well-read
>poster on the board to date. I am in awe of your
>cranial capacity and diction.
Oh dear gawd. Don't make his ego even BIGGER! *duck*
... and you just wanted to say 'erudite'...
*re-duck*
>how's that DVD collection of Star Trek coming?
>Just got Season 6 of Next Gen on DVD, didn't
>you? And HOW many versions of the Trek uniform
>do you have...?
The TNG collection is complete, actually.
Trek uniforms? I refuse to answer that on grounds that I may incriminate myself.
...
Oh alright...Just one... that I haven't done anything with in around 8-9 years... therefore indicating that I most certainly wouldn't be able to cram my current bulky stature into it, assuming I wanted to. ;) (I'm pretty much done with the convention-scene.. have been for years...)
...now my phaser collection... that's another story. ... and that bottle of "Blood Wine" I got at Quark's Bar... in Vegas...
... but it's not a cult.... Nope. Uh Uh.
(Hail hail fire & snow...)
;)
(I keep fighting the urge to bring this discussion back on topic... but I don't want to ask if there are any updates on Agent M3, for fear of Agent M2 maiming me...) :D
Agent ACK
(Who, thanks to Enterprise, thinks all Vulcans are BASTARDS...but that's ANOTHER blog-discussion) :D
*BG tries not to enter into anything vaguely resembling a pissing match with Agent ACK*
I think Huckleberry Finn is one of the books that is most highly defended when it comes to book banning ... there has been talk about taking it off library shelves for years, I think. Certainly about banning it from the classroom (we never studied it here).
*slight pause for internet "research"*
"In a recent survey of attempts to ban books in the United States, the American Library Association ranked Huckleberry Finn the fifth most frequently challenged book of the 1990s. The continuing controversy in American schools has influenced scholarly studies of the novel, with numerous recent books addressing Twain's portrayal of African Americans, the book's place in the curriculum, and suggestions for how to teach it." -- from the introduction to "Huckleberry Finn Debated" online at:
http://www.boondocksnet.com/twainwww/hf_debate.html
And for more fun with book banning/burning, check out:
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/banned-books.html
TTFN
p.s. Gotta baby yet?
*duck*
Posted by: Agent BG on February 13, 2003 10:03 PM>BG tries not to enter into anything vaguely resembling a pissing match
Aw man... ever since ya had a baby, yer no fun.
*duck*
(j/k) :D
Fifth-most frequently challenged novel huh? Somehow, I'm not surprised. Actually... scratch that.. I *am* surprised. I thought it would rank higher in this incredibly "PC" society. :P
Agent ACK
Posted by: Agent ACK on February 14, 2003 08:50 AMFascinating. Thank you for looking up those facts, Agent BG; your commendation is in the mail.
(I did once toy with the idea of "Agent cards" for successful Agents; maybe I should go ahead and do that.)
Cheers
Agent M
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