Parenting Classes for the Asses

..I debated for almost three days on what to name this rant. At first, hard as it might be to believe, I was actually trying to figure out a way to say what I felt without offending the dozen plus friends of mine who are parents. Around day two I decided that if they've been friends with me this long, chances are, I've probably already pissed them off once or twice. The title stuck.

The fact is the good parents are often overlooked, taken for granted, or just generally ignored. It's the ones that I'll be addressing here today that typically get all the attention. So before I begin this dangerous treading I'm about to do, let me preface with if you think this is about you, or that I hate your kids, then you'll need to stop reading at this moment. I can't control what you think from this point on, so just go ahead, I won't be offended, click the back button and go about your day. Skip this rant, and I'm sure years to come you'll be glad you did.

Now, if you're still here then you obviously have understood the need for someone to finally say something about out of control children, bad disciplinary tactics, and all above just stupid parenting. I promise, you won't be disappointed. Ready? Let's get started..

When I was a kid (as with many of you reading this), our generation didn't accept specific behaviors in public as well as in private. But let's focus on the public portion for this topic, because what and how parents manage children behind the front doors I'm least concerned with. It's when it effects me, and my life, that I start to raise that proverbial hand to comment. I'll say the obvious, I'm not a parent. Nor will I ever be. It's my choice, and a choice I made a long time ago for what I can say now, must have been psychic intuition. It's true, my patience can be low at times, and it's common knowledge I am protective about my belongings and material possessions. Neither factor, very kid friendly. I applaud those of you who have decided to have children, but I wonder sometimes if that decision was made or just accepted. You'll understand what I mean in a moment.

About a week ago, I ventured into a salad buffet restaurant. It's important for me to say I'm using this one instance as a mark on all the PRIOR instances exact same replicas of this situation have happened; don't think I'm taking one bad moment to base this rant on. You know me better than that, people. So while eating, I saw that the line at the salad bar was getting quite long, and not to mention, quite loud. I glanced behind me to see what the issue happened to be, and noted that around the middle section of the herd, there were about seven children. Between the ages of five and possibly ten, they were yelling, laughing, kicking each other, digging in the salad toppings, and for all purposes just being jackasses. The parents, a younger couple around the early stages of thirty, were all but ignoring them. Piling and concentrating on their own plates, as the line moved steadily down towards the register. Like I said, it was quite a long line at this point, and dotted down were more children, same behavior for the most part. Also, more seemingly exhausted, apathetic, apparently deaf, parents. The woman near my table, eating her salad, was also looking up rather annoyed at the noise. It occurred to me, as cases like this often do, that parenting is a skill..not a pre-existing mannerism employed by birthing something out of your body.

When I was younger, "acting up" as it was called in public was a death sentence. Embarrassing my parents, or generally embarrassing myself was considered reason for conversation, for addressing. And usually that conversation included a spanking, the promise of a spanking, or the "look" that meant that a spanking was coming any second. I'll say, this worked wonders for clearing my mind of any further mischievous actions or need to further the point. I did not argue, I did not continue, I merely noted this in my child's brain, and quickly came to the conclusion that a spanking, no matter what present form it was in, was not on my agenda. To say that I "did what I was told" at all junctions, would be insane. I was a kid, not Mother Teresa. But I did understand that action=consequence, and consequence=bad. Now, if I still chose the continue, even understanding what would come from it, I obtained a certain level of hesitation. Like jumping from a bungee cord, you know chances are you'll be fine, but committing your body to leaping to it's death is a lot harder than you'd think. The same goes for the child's mind..committing to doing something you know will more or less get you in trouble can sometimes lead to a little hesitation, or in other cases, a half-assed attempt.

But the problem is now parents are unable, unwilling, unskilled enough to know how to handle their kids in public. Some blame society, saying that it's become socially unacceptable to spank, handle, or use any force on your child in public for fear of retribution from others in the form of child endangerment or child abuse. I can't directly argue with this point, as it has some validity to it. In a lot of instances, the discipline we experienced as kids cannot always be employed these days, which is a failure in our child protective laws. While so focused on keeping kids "safe" from the physical actions of adults, we spend time monitoring what has always until recently, been declared acceptable parenting solutions (i.e., spanking, etc.) and therefore have less time to truly see the children who are not being handled acceptably (i.e., sexual assaults, broken bones, etc.). We've become too caught up in abolishment of all physical discipline to see that there has *always* been a line between the two. And if we cannot trust skilled (supposedly skilled, I should say) people to know and see the line for what it is, then why do we have them in the first place?

Others argue that parents now were treated differently, the rise of the "time out" children has given away to them producing off-spring. Potentially, also correct. In the late eighties, early nineties, the blossom of "new parenting" took place, and everyone was on board with the nature of "talking to your children so they can understand how you feel", and "exploring the option of sitting to think of what they've done alone" instead of the tried and true methods prior. The problem, and one of many, with these actions is that kids haven't developed a sense of adult reasoning. You cannot sit down with a child and explain why Mommy doesn't want to be looked at as the worst mother of the year when you pull down the shelf of candy at the store because I won't buy you one. It's not that simple with children, and in a lot of cases, not even that simple with adults either. Reason and logic don't find hold in children's brains until they can make decisions based on need. And that's not limited to an age (some children advance faster than others), but it's a limit that should be understood by the PARENT. You spend time with your kid, know what he or she is capable of grasping, you should also know what will work in terms of educating your child on behavior needs. I'll say that most kids aren't adapt to understanding those complexities. Most understand my equation above, bad behavior=bad result. And if you think that a "bad result" is sitting your kid down and talking AT them for five, ten, even fifteen minutes, then you yourself need someone to sit down with and figure out what the hell is wrong with you.

None of this is to say that talking to children is useless. It's just not the singular tool it's been made out to be. When I would get in trouble, included in the physical reminder that I was misbehaving, I would also get a short, child-understandable, statement. "You will knock that off or you'll spend the night in your room.", etc. Instead we see parents, like the ones at the salad buffet, literally doing nothing. Why is that? Is it because they don't know *what* to do? Is it because they can't figure out what works with the kid? If either of these are the issue, then seek parenting assistance. It is not the responsibility for the rest of us to face down your screaming kid because you are unsure of how to handle him or her. Where did the parent embarrassment go?

I'll hazard the guess that the whole embarrassment level has decreased because most everyone just pretends that it isn't happening. Whereas years past, a screaming child would get the attention of most everyone around. The eyes would burn into you until you carted that kid out of the room, and took care of the situation so as not to disturb everyone else. I find it interesting we have given over to apparent apathy in this regard. We as a society enjoy our solitude, we aren't "neighborly" as previously, and we don't tend to talk to strangers often. Most are fearful of what or who you could be talking to these days, but even with that need to remain solo and protected within yourself, we don't take a stand to protect ourselves from the onslaught of a kid in full tantrum mode. We don't say anything because that would pop our bubble of solitude. Yet, we are unable to be comfortable because of the action around us. What a vicious circle we dance.

It goes without saying that all of us have experienced these cases, the screaming kid in line at the store, the toddler upset at the table, just as we have experienced the parents that don't even pause in conversation when it happens. The ones that ignore, ignore, ignore and expect us all to do the same. Raising children to see that turning a blind eye to bad action in the world is the only acceptable thing to do. Does anyone take a moment to think that your children will raise children of their own, children who will be raised in the same methods that they themselves experienced? The few of us still around that remember the way it used to be will fade out, and frighteningly be replaced with the new breed of parent, the incompetent one.

In closing I'm going to say that I have had the blessing to see a parent or two from the "olden ways" take control of an out of control kid. I've not seen it enough though. And I'm hoping that if enough of us refuse to accept the behavior of disrespect, that eventually the embarrassment level will return. If you think you can handle little Jeffery or Nicole on your terms, keep in mind that the people who don't think you can, are watching to see how successful you really are.