Dawn Boyle
I spent yesterday with some of my closest friends. There were 11 families, all different ages, boys and girls playing together for hours and hours. There was not one fight (except for the one that happened down the beach between teenagers). No one was injured (except for the kid with friends down the beach, nothing major). There was an earthquake (no seriously, there was and I felt it).
Anyway, it was the perfect day....on the way home, it turned to be the same old, same old with my kids. Why can't this one come over, where are we going after we get home from the beach, can we stop and get ice cream. Never enough.
It got me thinking, are kids worse today than in the decades before or is it that we suck as parents? Have we given up on trying to parent our kids? Who is really in control...them or us? Twenty years ago did kids behave better? What caused the change?
I would love to hear your thoughts!
I'm sure you've heard this:
ReplyDelete“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers." This was written by Socrates (470 – 399 BC)about children of his time. I think kids are kids no matter what age. They are wonderful,lovable,amazing creations and if we give them guidelines, guidance, and love,(and let them accept consequences of their own actions) they turn out to be wonderful, lovable, amazing adults!
You have to stop spoiling kids. Let them play. Go in the yard, their room, next door to a friends. When parents lay out an itinerary nearly everyday in the summer, they get used to it. It's why they're asking for you to entertain them all the time...("where are we going when we get home"?) How about NOWHERE?
ReplyDeleteWe did plenty of those "NOWHERE" days...seems you have answered the question...parents suck - not the kids.
ReplyDeleteMarion, it's true. Every generation thinks their kids were the most difficult to deal with!
We are damned if we do, damned if we don't. We are all just doing the best we can for our kids but at times it does seem that it's never enough. We probably are partly to blame but it's a different world now and we can't just open the front door at 10am and say see ya later kids! Thank god for sunny beach days with awesome friends....and here's to some September beach days while they're all in school!!
ReplyDeleteCouldn't have said it better, Marion!
ReplyDeleteNikki C brought up some interesting points.
ReplyDeleteWell, you all did but Nikki's made me think.
I believe it was here at The Lounge where I read that supposedly child abductions & attacks are not anymore common today than they were when we were kids. If that's true then why don't we throw the kids out the door & tell them to go find something to do & be home by dark?
Anonymous has a point.... I don't think we are spoiling our kids but setting up an itinerary for them is overkill. It's awful that everything has to be so structured... "Hurry up, it's time for karate, then swimming, then baseball, then soccer, then a playdate, then art lessons...." blah blah blah.... it's taking all the fun out of stuff. What happened to just going to the pool to hang out with whoever is there? Whatever happened to walking around the neighborhood to find enough kids to form 2 baseball teams?
It does appear to me that most of today's kids have no work ethic, no manners, etc. which leads me to think that Boyle's right & we do suck as parents. Then I think about my parents, aunts, & uncles-my Aunt Marie snuck out of the house in 1965 to see The Beatles at Shea Stadium. My Grandmother beat the snot out of her. Then Aunt Marie said immediately after the beating, "It was worth it."
So maybe not much has changed. Maybe we're just turning into the people who we used to laugh at when we were younger.
We don't suck Boyle. Like Marion said, "They are wonderful,lovable,amazing creations and if we give them guidelines, guidance, and love,(and let them accept consequences of their own actions) they turn out to be wonderful, lovable, amazing adults!"
Well said Marion!