And if you are a parent, you can do the same.
I am so sick of seeing people discussing others' parenting. I'm not a perfect parent. You aren't a perfect parent. And if you aren't a parent, well, you aren't even a parent, perfect or otherwise! And it's not that I don't think you should have an opinion. I think it's great you're learning how to be the perfect parent while not actually having any. Really. Because the world needs more perfectly keen observers like you. You know, the people who have everything worked out in theory but have never actually tried it.
I don't care if you're posting about poor parenting or commenting on it. Okay, backtrack. If you're posting about a case of poor parenting that's bad enough, but I really have a special hatred for the people who comment on the original post because you. Weren't. There.
Have you ever noticed that any parent who posts on others' parenting or comments on posts about others' parenting always is a great parent with a perfect solution and has perfectly behaved kids? Yeah, I'm a great parent and I know exactly how I'd handle each situation I read about, and I think my kids are the greatest thing since sliced bread too, but undoubtedly every time I go out in public with them someone is thinking I'm doing something wrong and posting about it somewhere on the internet. Just. Like. You.
I also noticed that people who comment on these posts are great people with perfect manners whose parents knew exactly how to raise kids (or else they turned out fine in spite of bad parenting--take your pick). I'm sure there are people out there who think you're an obnoxious, dysfunctional person who must've had obnoxious, dysfunctional parents as well.
Shut up. Go on. So you ran into some really obnoxious kids and you think the parents handled it poorly (or didn't handle it at all). Get over it and get on with your life. They aren't your kids. You don't have to go home with them. I'm sure there's the occasional justified rant where a kid was really out of line or the parent really sucked at being a parent, but those are rarer than you think. Trust me on this.
One of my all-time favorite lines: "People who don't know how to be parents shouldn't have kids." That is absolutely the most asinine line I have ever heard regarding parenting: 1) They have kids. It's already done. There's nothing anyone can do to stop it because there are unplanned pregnancies everywhere, all the time. 2) What you really mean is, "People who don't want to raise their children the way I think they ought to raise them shouldn't have kids," and that's just cocky and conceited. Chances are, you aren't much better than the people you think are horrid parents. 3) For all you know, these awful parents are better parents than you--they may just be having a bad day. Or hey, consider for a minute that they actually know what they're doing and you just have no insight into the situation or the child and don't realize it. Gee. Who'd'a thunk?
Everyone's a friggin' critic when it comes to someone else's parenting skills. They don't give enough attention to their kids; they give too much attention to their kids; they don't discipline their kids; they discipline them too much; they're using the wrong kind of discipline; they spank their kids; they don't spank their kids; they don't teach their kids; they teach their kids the wrong things; they expect too much of their kids; they don't expect enough from their kids. On and on the list goes, into infinity!
It's starting to give me a complex when I go out in public and am faced with my children's misbehavior. Am I going to have the cops called if I spank my kid? Is some brave soul going to tell me off if I don't? If I ignore my child when I feel it's necessary, is someone going to judge me for that, even though they have no idea what my child's needs are?
I get that you think kids in general nowadays are misbehaved or mistaught or mis-whatever you know to be wrong with kids these days. But don't you see that it's people not minding their own frickin' business and not letting parents and teachers do their jobs that's causing the problem? People can't discipline their kids the way they want to because society frowns on everything and nitpicks everything.
I see a lot of kids come in with their parents where I work, and I tell you, there have been maybe one or two times in the two years I've worked there where I've thought the parent wasn't doing his or her job. Even so, I've kept it to myself and not breathed a word to anyone, because it's not my place or my business to derail someone else's parenting. I might think they're doing a crappy job, but maybe they think they're doing a great job, and maybe they would think I'm a bad parent if they saw me in public with my kids. After all, mine can be hellions if we're out on an errand day. If I took my child out of wherever we went anytime they misbehaved in the slightest, I'd never get anything done.
Kids are kids, each one really is different, and your obviously perfect ideas of parenting aren't going to fit every child's needs. Usually when I see long lists of comments on a post about some stranger's parenting skills, I disagree with more than half of what I read. If you're a parent who's done this and is reading this, and if you're my friend, one of those comments I disagreed with may have been yours. That doesn't mean I think you're a bad parent; it means I think you're a very different parent. So what do I do?
Shut up. Go on.
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8 comments:
This reminds me of of this blog post I read a while back. You should read it.
Woot! He's voicing my sentiments exactly. Thanks, I needed that!
I think I can relate to this post in one form or another. If you aren't a scientist, why do you feel you have the right to an opinion?
As a parent, one has an utmost important job. Does any one parent have parenting down to a science? Probably not. Does it affect me if someone else's child isn't being properly raised? Of course. As a result, I have a vested interest in said child behaving responsibly, within reason.
My next door neighbor of my apartment complex is terrible at raising children. Or rather, I'd venture to say, she just doesn't give a fuck. The children trash the place. There are sunflower seeds spit all over. Plastic wrappers fly around in whirlwinds. One child's homework was scattered all over the parking lot for days. I got angry and corrected the kids one day I saw them as I was leaving my apartment, and I let them know I was pissed off too. They had written "Peanut sucks dick" right near my apartment wall.
The mother either doesn't care, or doesn't know. In either scenario, she isn't providing her children with the skills necessary for functioning in society. That affects me. It affects the entire community. To a much lesser extent, it affects everything. It does not matter that the children do not go home with me at the end of the day; it still affects me.
Every reasonable parent should be completely open to criticism. I'm not talking about jealous soccer mom-fueled criticism, but rather genuine, logical criticism.
Much like I don't care to hear some random idiot's opinion about the grammar of my paper, it's understood that a parent doesn't care for random criticisms also. But to block out information from well-informed sources is a form of intellectual inhibition that is detrimental to the child, parent, and society itself as a whole.
"They aren't your kids" is an invalid position. There is a right way and a wrong way to do most things. People don't have a right to an opinion on matters like these. One isn't allowed an opinion on the type of material we make a bridge out of because one's opinion on such a thing is absolutely irrelevant. Do we, as a society, care that you think the bridge should be made of bra straps instead of reinforced steel titanium alloy? No we don't. One doesn't have a right to an opinion on such a matter. But an informed, studied individual does have a right to assess and criticize that which we know is inherently wrong if the information is deduced from the scientific method. The scientific method is the most objectionable tool we have for knowing how to treat life.
When a study shows that mothers, who've recently eaten mercury-inundated salmon, shouldn't be breast feeding, this is scientifically understood. It isn't up to opinion. If a mother is informed on this, she shouldn't let her ego take over and block the information; she needs to implement what is understood immediately!
"They aren't your kids" is also a rather moot point in other circumstances. We don't say that we don't have the right to correct murders or pedophiles because they "aren't are kids". For the same reasons that we correct them, it is in societies best interest to give and receive criticism as necessary, in all fields, subjects, and topics relevant.
Brandon, I LOVE this, and I'm going to reply when I'm not at work.
I wouldn't give an opinion on the bridge. I know nothing about making bridges. Even if I knew a little something, and someone said, "Hey, let's make this bridge out of bra straps," I'd question it before I said, "That's a dumb idea; you can't do that." Further, kids aren't science. I'm sure there's child psychology (I'll skip the spiel about how social sciences are the least exact of them all), but I don't know a stranger on the street from a child psychologist from an axe murderer. Why on earth would I listen to a stranger about how to raise my kids? Most people who walk up to a parent in public don't offer constructive criticism--they nag. I don't know any parent who would positively respond to nagging from a stranger, so what good is that really accomplishing?
It's better to go to the parent and offer supportive advice, not attempt to inflict your ideas of right and wrong on them and their kids.
My post did talk about people on the street some, but mainly it was aimed at people posting about it online, which serves no purpose except to have others jump to justify the poster's feelings on the subject, when in fact those people know even less about the situation than the poster. In fact, it's much worse, because they're only getting the story as told by a very biased source.
I firmly agree that everyone should be concerned with the welfare and raising of all children who have the potential to be functional adults in society, but I believe people should practice prudence and restraint about stepping into non-extreme situations about which they know little or nothing. To use your analogy (which is flawed, but we'll stick with it for now), maybe they believe a bridge is going up, when in fact it's a building. In the case of child care, you NEVER know each situation because every child is different and doesn't need the same things. In the case of children, most often the parent IS the most knowledgeable authority and best source of information for the kid.
I believe it really does take a village to raise a child, but NOT to criticize the parent, especially over a single incident into which one has very little insight and experience.
I agree that there are situations where someone really does need to step in and say something to the parents, but most of the time the parents merely need to be informed of something their child is doing that they may be unaware of. If the parents have already been informed, then chances are, your mentioning it won't change anything anyway, and writing about it in a public forum is doing less than no good. At any rate, I already conceded this point in my original blog, and I still hold that it is more often unnecessary to step in than not.
In the case of pedophilia and the like, we have officials who take care of such things, not people on the street--and those are extreme cases of norms that are strongly backed by the vast majority of our current western culture, so I think using those as analogies is inappropriate for the topic of conversation.
. . . continued (wouldn't all fit in my last comment).
I hear that whole spiel about how everyone has a "civic duty and right to see that all kids grow up to be functional adults in society" a LOT. The problem comes in where your ideas of a functioning adult who contributes to society (and how to create one) is different from everyone else's. Again, practice prudence and restraint. If a kid were screaming in a restaurant, do you REALLY believe that child will be doing that as an adult, or is that just an obnoxious habit children have? How you handle a screaming child and how someone else handles it are probably going to be different--that's not call for you to choose to walk up to the parent and tell them they're doing it wrong. Or worse, to write about it on a public forum where it does little to no good except as a way to express how you'd do it so much better, which is conceited and arrogant.
So yes, the fact that they aren't your kids is a very valid point in my mind.
Where you got the idea that the scientific method has proved anything about childrearing is beyond me. Child psychology is the closest thing we have to science in child rearing, and as I said before, the social sciences are the most inexact of all sciences, because much of our information is biased, and we are restrained from treating humans purely scientifically.
As a summation: 1. Stranger on street or idiot on forum is not equivalent to professional on child rearing. I might listen to the professional; I wouldn't listen to Joe Blow on the forum.
2. I would never consider child rearing a science. I think there are some things we can know about child psychology, but they never apply to every child. I cannot believe you would even think so.
3. My blog was obviously not written about said "well informed sources," but the "random criticisms."
4. The fact that the child belongs to its parent first is a VERY valid point. In the end, I'm going to have a lot more say over how my child is raised than you ever will. My blog was not aimed at extreme circumstances. Re-read for context.
Kris:
I really like this blog. I'm proud of you for writing it.
I would like to mention, that everyone does have a right to an opinion; however, it is how the opinion is delivered that counts in my book.
And I can't stand a person (and there are a LOT of them these days) that feel others shouldn't render opinions unless they personally see that individual as fit enough to do so. That is just plain uppety-ness. Snobbery. The "I'm better than you" syndrome.
Heck, even scientists begin with opinions and theories. Proving them, though, is usually the crux, and can sometimes take a long time, and sometimes those opinions and theories are never proven.
Heck, I work with scientists everyday, and even they don't agree with each other on MANY things. They don't even always agree on what is "proven." Just goes to show that even the "professionals" are not always right. And they never admit when they're wrong.
I do agree with you, though, that if one is not completely and FULLY aware of a situation, then it is perhaps not a good idea to pointedly spout an opinion on a specific situation.
I also agree that if an opinion is rendered to denigrate an individual with an intent to do harm, or to discredit with intent to "put them in their place," then the individual doing so needs to STFU and GTFO. : )
Mom, I guess you'll just have to call me an uppity snob then. I just can't get behind it being someone else's business to declare a parent fit or unfit based on a single instance, or worse, a single second-telling of an instance, of a parent interacting with his child. Dem's da breaks.
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