Everyone has a different parenting style. Some let their
kids get away with murder, some make Colonel Klink look like Captain Kangaroo.
I’m trying to fall somewhere in between.
I was raised by relatively strict parents. It’s true they
didn’t like me much, given the whole mincing effeminacy thing so highly
regarded by Prairie folk whose exposure to homosexuality was generally
relegated to Paul Lynd on Hollywood Squares or a visit to the hairdresser. But
I do truthfully believe that my mother and father’s insistence on good manners,
on being responsible for one’s words and actions, would have been constant even
if I were the strapping young boyo they had hoped for.
Thus I grew up knowing how to speak with my elders, how to
behave in shops and restaurants, and with a fair understanding that any
diversion from these manners would mean swift and harsh remonstrance.
You know, spanking.
Now, to be very clear, I do not believe in hitting my kid. I
don’t want to teach him that the strongest person is automatically right. I
don’t want him to think that we settle disagreements through inflicting pain –
that establishing physical supremacy is the way to win.
I don’t want him to thrill at the subjugation of others, be
they people or animals or even bugs.
I don’t want him to be the sort of kid who gets his jollies
picking on those weaker than himself.
Of course, other parents don’t necessarily share this
philosophy. Just recently we attended a rare birthday party along with several
other boys of Pre-Schooler N’s age. I noticed some pretty pronounced
differences.
For one thing, several of the boys seemed obsessed with
guns. They ran around with various toy representations of the instruments of
war, making those charming ‘pew pew’ sounds while they chased each other about
the room.
My son has little awareness of guns. We made it very clear
early on that our family doesn’t play with guns – or “shooters” as he calls
them. He’s certainly curious when he spots them in a store, but he’s mercifully
quick to hand me the iPad if one of the videos he’s watching on Netflix or
Youtube inadvertently shows one. He knows they’re off limits.
“They’re boys,” said one mother to me, when I explained my
position. “They turn everything into guns even if they’re never seen one.”
Which of course, is utterly ridiculous. If every child were
so psychically gifted to mimic a device completely outside of their field of
experience, I would be up to my neck in lollipop makers and automatic
butt-wiping machines (my son hates that not-so-fresh feeling).
It’s not relegated to boys, of course. There are several
pre-adolescent girls that seem intent on making life a living hell for all
those around them. They order their parents around, they scream, they’re rude
and they treat adults like their personal servants. So it’s definitely a
gender-neutral attitude towards letting your kids basically do whatever the
fuck they want.
And I really, really hate it.
I hate it because it makes me dislike the kids themselves,
rather than placing the blame firmly at their parents’ wimpy feet.
I hate it because my own kid sees their shitty behaviour,
and has enough sense of fairness to question why he gets in trouble while they
go un-corrected.
I hate it because it makes it that much harder to keep
Pre-Schooler N in line, while people around me stare quizzically at what they
believe to be a non-issue.
I don’t believe kids
can just be left to do what’s natural. They have zero clue how to fairly
resolve conflict, how to communicate their needs and frustrations in a
socially-acceptable manner or how to generally not be a little asshole when
left to their own devices.
"Oh leave them be, they'll work it out on their own."
Bullshit. Hasn’t anyone read Lord of the Flies for fuck’s sake?
And certainly happier than a pig’s head stuck on spear.
