Author Topic: Morality in parenting  (Read 2089 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Karass

  • Posts: 186
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
Morality in parenting
« on: April 07, 2007, 12:22:15 AM »
Sorry Overlordd for stealing your idea, but I think the fornits bunch should weigh in on this topic. Most of them don't read the other forum, so here's a cross-post from a former "troubled teen" who's now a "troubled parent" (not really 'troubled', just 'concerned', 'confused' and a few other "c" words).

-- Punk

Kids, like their parents, are all unique individuals with their own beliefs, attitudes & behaviors. Sure, one expects that the way they were raised and the values of their parents have some influence on them. But that influence may be weaker in some than in others, or that influence may not manifest itself until later in life -- for example, when those kids become parents themselves, or when they have at least grown up a bit beyond adolescence.

Regardless of the parent's values or the way the kids were raised, certain issues like entitlement, selfishness, "invincibility" and disrespect of authority are much more prevalent in the teenage years than they were at a younger age -- or than they will be later in adulthood.

I don't think anyone has a good explanation for how or why a child who was raised one way can start to act in a completely different way just during adolescence, and then (usually) drift back toward a more stable center later in adulthoold. I think there is more to it than just hormones, negative peer influences, mass media influences and "mental illness."

The magic age at which rebellion & risky behavior dissipated for me and my friends from high school and college was somewhere in our early to mid-20s. Funny how successful most of us have been -- entrepeneurs, corporate VPs, doctors, dentists, lawyers, politicians, artists, musicians, engineers -- you name it. I can still remember the days when our parents thought we would all end up in jail or worse. Not all of us, just most of us. It's especially funny when I think about a few of them who are insanely rich (and somehow still happy), who are now providing a nice lifestyle for elderly parents who once gave them a heap of sh*t about pot plants growing in the back yard...

American society was different then -- you could be a teenager with problems and still end up being a leader in a Fortune 500 company and a major contributor to society after you finished your education, finished growing up and basically got your act together. You could even learn to be a good parent to your own kids.

Today's attitude is more along the lines of lock 'em up, drug 'em if they're sick and make them dependent...make them worthless, or at least make them feel worthless. Listen to TV "doctors" and other so-called "experts." Go online to forums like this, looking for advice that might help you figure out how someone else can do for your child what you have failed to do yourself. Doubt yourself and your parental abilities. Please, a whole industry is depending on that.

Back to parental influence. At some point in our parenting careers, there comes a day where each of us says something to their child and thinks "oh my God, I sounded just like my father"...or mother -- usually accompanied by the thought that we swore we would never become like our parents. At that point we realize that not everything mom & dad tried to teach us was nonsense. And we start to feel 'old.'

I'm glad I knew everything there was to know when I was 16, because ever since then I have been getting dumber, despite tons of college classes, a few degrees and more than half a lifetime of experiences.

I think by the time I'm a really old man, I will know everything there is to know about nothing, and will know almost nothing about everything.

But I sort of understand my teenage kids, who at this stage of their lives still know everything about everything -- especially the things I don't want them to know about. I allow them the freedom to make mistakes...and I fear for their future if they get caught.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
Like its politicians and its wars, society has the teenagers it deserves. -- J.B. Priestley

Offline sick of child torture girl

  • Posts: 110
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
Morality in parenting
« Reply #1 on: April 07, 2007, 02:31:13 AM »
i think the majority of parents are still like that ..its the nutty ones that dont understand that kidsare not there to serve them- make them happy like a flat screen TV, that get soooooooo enraged and hysterical when youth cut class,  sneak out, try to hang out more with their freinds than with them.

And of course, when kids 'rebellious behavior" goes farther than this- when they run away, are truant its the parents absisve behavior that the kid is trying to escape from. Its not the parents being under the influence of a bad culture It bad parents being influenced by a bad culture. if this was a different country and a differnt time- Ireland 1910s-1990s, these parents would be shipping their kids off to the Magdalene Asylums to do laundry in silence and
be
humiliated by sadistic nuns for "moral develpment" as opposed to "emotional growth"

Its all the same, abusive neglectful parets having someone else to the abusing for them- and ridding them of the hasle of neglecting them in person- still too much effort
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline TheWho

  • Posts: 7256
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
Morality in parenting
« Reply #2 on: April 07, 2007, 01:48:11 PM »
Quote
i think the majority of parents are still like that….


I tend to agree with this also.  I don’t see a big difference between the parents of today and my parents growing up.  I also feel that having an option like the “Teen Help Industry” makes it easier for some parents to off load the problems their children are having prematurely if they don’t feel like working at it.  But what I see more clearly is that kids now are exposed to more at a younger age.  Kids are smoking and drinking in grade school now and knowing someone who shoots up coke or heroin is no big deal so trying it themselves is a shorter step.  When we talked about Hendrix doing heroin we thought wow this guy is cool, but way out there.  Heroin, crack etc. was not part of an 8th graders life back then and most kids didn’t know anyone who shot up.  We were no strangers to drugs ourselves but getting high on the weekends and then going back to school on Monday seems to be an activity in the past.  Kids are getting high, doing drugs every day, using needles and are putting themselves at a tremendous risk of contacting any number of diseases, overdosing getting raped etc.

The risks are higher but there doesn’t seem to be any intervention or education in place that is effective.  Most parents, I know, aren’t looking to have perfect kids and know they are going to screw up many times over, like we did, kids express themselves with body jewelry, tattoos, hair style and clothing the same as we did and we understand that it is a natural process, but we all also know the parents who have lost a child to rape, drug overdose , suicide etc. which wasn’t as prevalent when I was young.  We would hear of someone overdosing on drugs and it was a big deal even though it wasn’t anyone we knew or even in our school and it effected us.  Now kids are raped in the class rooms and worse.

So it does put the parents off balance and makes them step back a little more than ours had to.  Most of the parents of these kids in TBS’s are good parents that are engaged in their kids lives and have their kids happiness and future in mind when choosing this step for them.  It may be a control issue for some but I see this as a small minority.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline OverLordd

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 802
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
Morality in parenting
« Reply #3 on: April 07, 2007, 07:49:55 PM »
Its all good, as long as I get credit for the idea, and you gave me that... intelectual property bizitch!
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
our walking down a hallway, you turn left, you turn right. BRICK WALL!

GAH!!!!

Yeah, hes a survivor.

Offline AtomicAnt

  • Posts: 552
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
Morality in parenting
« Reply #4 on: April 08, 2007, 03:42:53 PM »
Quote from: ""TheWho""
Quote
i think the majority of parents are still like that….

I tend to agree with this also.  I don’t see a big difference between the parents of today and my parents growing up.  I also feel that having an option like the “Teen Help Industry” makes it easier for some parents to off load the problems their children are having prematurely if they don’t feel like working at it.  But what I see more clearly is that kids now are exposed to more at a younger age.  Kids are smoking and drinking in grade school now and knowing someone who shoots up coke or heroin is no big deal so trying it themselves is a shorter step.  When we talked about Hendrix doing heroin we thought wow this guy is cool, but way out there.  Heroin, crack etc. was not part of an 8th graders life back then and most kids didn’t know anyone who shot up.  We were no strangers to drugs ourselves but getting high on the weekends and then going back to school on Monday seems to be an activity in the past.  Kids are getting high, doing drugs every day, using needles and are putting themselves at a tremendous risk of contacting any number of diseases, overdosing getting raped etc.

The risks are higher but there doesn’t seem to be any intervention or education in place that is effective.  Most parents, I know, aren’t looking to have perfect kids and know they are going to screw up many times over, like we did, kids express themselves with body jewelry, tattoos, hair style and clothing the same as we did and we understand that it is a natural process, but we all also know the parents who have lost a child to rape, drug overdose , suicide etc. which wasn’t as prevalent when I was young.  We would hear of someone overdosing on drugs and it was a big deal even though it wasn’t anyone we knew or even in our school and it effected us.  Now kids are raped in the class rooms and worse.

So it does put the parents off balance and makes them step back a little more than ours had to.  Most of the parents of these kids in TBS’s are good parents that are engaged in their kids lives and have their kids happiness and future in mind when choosing this step for them.  It may be a control issue for some but I see this as a small minority.


Once again, I think you watch too much TV. I was smoking pot and licking blotters at age 12. That was 1973. I lost my virginity at 14. I was also considered a shy geek. So I contend that as kids we knew as much, if not more, about drugs and sex than kids do now.

In fact, parents these days should be better prepared. My parents were clueless about sex and drugs and teen stuff (they were teens in the 1940s). My generation often says our kids really can't do anything we ourselves did not try. Shouldn't that make us better prepared and more tolerant?

Also, what intervention did they have in those good old days? Straight Inc? I earned a ride home in the back seat of a police cruiser now and again, but pot smoking only earned me detention hall and a lecture, not the jail term they now give kids. I was never suspended because it was commonly believed in those days that the goal was to keep kids in school, not throw them out.

The kids have not changed, Who. The parents have changed. Quite frankly, I think the current crop of young people are, by and large, far more conservative, hard working, and less prone to trouble making than my generation ever was. Drug use, teen pregnancy, and crime statistics seem to bear that out. Here in SC, I am taken aback that teenagers call me 'sir.' It sounds weird.

The fact is that society has become far less tolerant of teen behavior than it used to be. A fight at school was broken up. The police were not called. Pot got you detention hall. Some high schools had smoking areas for students. We had no dress code at my high school. Children could not be tried as adults. It was expected that kids would experiment with sex and alcohol. When the police caught us with alcohol, they'd just confiscate it and leave. Zero tolerance had not been invented, yet.

It is a much more demanding world now. There are far more rules for kids and far stiffer penalties. Kids are required to do way more homework and be scheduled all the time. I heard a woman on the radio (NPR) and she said with a straight face (voice), "Today's young people are used to doing volunteer community work. After all, many high schools require it."  Huh?

Another point is that parents these days expect their kids to be perfect students destined to Ivy League schools. In my day, parents understood some of their kids were not rocket scientists and accepted that C's were good enough for that kid. Not everyone was college bound. That's why we had vo-tech schools.

I hang out with men older than I am (50s and 60s), but we all agree that we feel fortunate that we grew up when we did and not today. We agree it pretty much sucks to be a kid these days. At least compared to the freedoms we had when we were young.

And as for options. Let's face it, the very suggestion of seeing a therapist when I was a kid would cause eyes to roll. There was a huge stigma attached to admitting, let alone treating a mental health issue. Only nut cases did that. Other than varsity sports, there are were no after school programs for kids. We were called 'latch key kids' because we let ourselves into our homes and were on our own until the parents came home.

If we did something strange or acted weird, our parents assumed it was just a stage. They did not jump overboard and rush us to doctors and shove pills down our throats. They did not ship us off to emotional growth schools.

These days, all a kid has to do is squeek and someone wants to shove Ridalin into them. It's ridiculous and most parents I talk to agree with me that schools are intervening way too much and way to soon in the psychological, psychiatric sense.

We have too many interventions, Who, not too few.

The bottom line, Who, is that I think society is far more demanding of its young people than when we were kids and the strain sometimes takes it's toll on some of them.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Anonymous

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 164653
  • Karma: +3/-4
    • View Profile
Morality in parenting
« Reply #5 on: April 08, 2007, 03:58:18 PM »
All the dorky square kids think their "time" in school was the golden age, because they never saw or heard of drug use. Fucking losers are out of the loop. TheWho, squares exist today and will tell you the same shit. Got to go looking for fun times, they don't come a knockin'.... nothing changes but the scenery.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Antigen

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 12992
  • Karma: +3/-0
    • View Profile
    • http://wwf.Fornits.com/
Morality in parenting
« Reply #6 on: April 08, 2007, 11:42:50 PM »
AtomicAnt, I have nothing to add. Well writ.

I've been wondering lately, though, about how it all has happened. Read a couple of good books, mostly guided by that question.

In a nutshell, I think the reason why this generation of parents are so banefully clueless is because they were raised by the government, simple as that. My rents were WWII generation too. Very different backgrounds, which served to well illustrate the differences in culture.

My mom came from some new money, had a maid they called mammy, attended Catholic boarding school and spent the summers and school breaks w/ her grandmother in Germantown. Evidently her dad was to be avoided. Don't ask me why, we can only guess, this fucker was so incredibly anal he made my grandmother cover the piano legs cause they were shapely. Needless to say, we didn't discuss such things as a family and Mom never had  much mothering so she never learned how. I remember Grandma being sweet as anything, but just a pushover. Her dad was, as my father called him, a pro-fessional alcoholic cause of his belonging to that Stepcraft country club.

Dad was a lot more home-spun. Crazy Mac was the only boy in his poor neighborhood outside of Philly to make it into the Navy and the only one to come back. Most of the rest died at Normandy Beach. He did it, all of it, meeting the entrance exam requirements, signing a waiver for flatfootedness (it was congenital, I think, grandpa was a cop) and outright bullshitting about his age, all for the $21/mo he could send back home.He was raised the old fashioned way, running from his dad and his uncles, scrounging for food, work, money, comfort or just a goddamned break.

Dad never completely bought in for long. Mom found her Eutopia in the program. I don' t think that's coincidence. I think if we want to crack this nut, we'll have to look to how we've come upon this situation, whenever it's gone down similarly to this in history and what might work to turn things a better way.

Been reading:
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
"Don\'t let the past remind us of what we are not now."
~ Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Sweet Judy Blue Eyes

Offline Oz girl

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 1459
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
Morality in parenting
« Reply #7 on: April 09, 2007, 01:21:06 AM »
What seems to be hilarious with this idea that 12 year olds are shooting up at a dramatic rate is that kids are if anything more statistically lawabiding and socially conservative now than babyboomers and generation ex were. Given that the average age for an american kids to loose their virginity is 17 and that kdis are taking less drugs and comitting less crime the level of hysteria which this industry appears to be able to generate is astounding. i dont think anyone is even aware anymore of what this industry is keeping their kids safe from.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_ATSRH.html
http://www.nida.nih.gov/Infofacts/HSYouthtrends.html
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/offage.htm
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
n case you\'re worried about what\'s going to become of the younger generation, it\'s going to grow up and start worrying about the younger generation.-Roger Allen

Offline TheWho

  • Posts: 7256
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
Morality in parenting
« Reply #8 on: April 09, 2007, 08:55:40 AM »
Not a big TV watcher, AA, we have one on the first floor but rarely sit in front of it, except for some sports events.  I find it interesting reading each persons account.  It appears to be more regional then generational.  I had friends in the public school system as well as parochial and doing hard drugs at age 12 was not even heard of in the late 60’s early 70’s.  We were in the suburbs and maybe things were different in the city I am sure.  But we were not sheltered from the drug world by any stretch of the imagination.  But we just weren’t exposed to it until high school and then mostly if you knew upperclassmen.  

Being exposed to something doesn’t necessarily make one more prepared or tolerant.  I think it allowed us to see how some of our friends turned out and realize the dangers.  When you are a kid you don’t care about the risks involve or consequences and I agree, my parents generation were clueless about what was going on as far as sex and drugs.  So given that, “We know”!!  We have been thru it and know the dangers and it is natural to want to protect your children from getting hurt.  Its not a natural process to have a child shooting up in the bathroom during recess in grade school.  This isn’t something he/she is going to just grow out of if left unchecked.  You cant just grow out of being pregnant by rape at age 14 or getting HIV.  Many of these consequences stick to you for life.  These are not choices we had a chance to make when we were young so we were more insulated.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »