PARENTS! (Yes, I am YELLING at YOU!) Parenthood is easy.
The nuts and bolts of parenting are simple. Below are the rules to avoid raising an emperor who ruins your life and annoys me at Starbucks. Get these basics down, and then you can deal with what makes parenthood enjoyable (as opposed to barely tolerable.)
- FOLLOW THROUGH (I had to yell this one, also.)
If you say, “Timmy, don’t do X, or we will have to do Y” you best be ready to follow through with plan Y.
If you don’t follow through with Plan Y, you’re setting yourself up to become a human treadmill for a tyrant.
How about we take this to the next level?
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It drives me nuts to hear open threats in public. “If you don’t stop throwing truffle cavatelli, Bunky, you won’t get to watch Real Housewives, on my iPhone.” (And two seconds later, Bunky is watching the iPhone. Because the parents gave up.) “Don’t puncture the heirloom tomatoes, Bordeaux, or you won’t get an heirloom cookie.” (And two stalls later at the farmer’s market, mischievous Bordeaux sports gluten-full crumbs all over his cashmere jumper. Because the parents gave up!)
PARENTS! (Yes, I’m yelling again) YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW THROUGH!
Showing your kids you mean what you say will give them limits, make them respect your word and stop them from acting out (too much) in the future.
The one time you yank your horrendous progeny from library story-time draws the line.
The one time you leave a restaurant without receiving your mozzarella sticks gains you respect.
The one time you send your kid to bed hungry because they refused to eat Shake’n Bake and only wanted cookies will give you more time to watch Real Housewives and drink wine. Um, I mean teaches important lessons.
Prepare yourself to:
• Leave the full grocery cart in the middle aisle.
• Get your wine in a to-go cup.
• Turn the car around.
• Saw the wheels off the Thomas train.
• Get off at the next bus stop. (There’ll be another.)
• Waste the money you spent getting into the puppet show to save your sanity down the line.
• Drag a child throwing a tantrum down the street. (It’s OK. You’re the boss.)
• FOLLOW THROUGH! (stop yelling)
Usually you just need to step out of the library/restaurant/poetry-slam for five minutes to change their behavior.
And you can’t seriously be afraid that childish protests in public are worse than showing who’s boss. If they sense you’re embarrassed because you’re in public, your kid will steamroll all over you.
They’ve got to learn there are consequences to bad choices. And parents teach consequences, which prepare kids for good future behavior.
You might feel bad in the short-term. But parenthood ain’t a sprint, it’s a marathon.
And they might say “I hate you.” Fine. You can just respond, “That’s OK. I love you. Now we’re going home because you spit on the banquette, threw a book at your brother and stuck a french fry in that Dowager Countess’ hairdo.”
Oh. And the other two rules?
- See above.
- See above.
I wrote “3 Rules” because “1 Rule” seemed misleading.
But this is the important one.
Gavin Lodge is a Broadway performer, father and blogger. This essay was first published on Daddy Coping In Style.
Scribe38
My aunt’s rule for me and my brother, “embarrass me in public and I will beat your butt in public”. I will never forget her asking this white man for his belt when we were acting out at the zoo. She scared that poor man in taking off his belt. Lol.
petensfo
Parents need a symbol they can share with each other in solidarity in their most trying moments.
My siblings are either short-order cooks or have resigned themselves to children that eat nothing but chicken mcnuggets. It’s kind of infuriating when they review ingredient lists as I cook with the expectation that I’ll accommodate.
I told the kids not to worry, there’d be another meal tomorrow, but Grandma stepped in & did the special orders. I’d have let them go hungry. lol
MacAdvisor
Yes, this is all there is to parenting (sarcasm). It all comes down to the one, simple rule (sarcasm). Of course, it doesn’t work with children under about two. One has to think about what one is going to say rather than just threaten wildly. One does need to pick the battles (food is not worth fighting over, control issues over food can cause life-long problems). One needs to be realistic and age-appropriate. Demanding a tired, missed-his-nap four-year old stop crying isn’t going to happen no matter what the consequence. You need give the kid his nap time. Demanding a teenager stop seeing “that boy” is only going to ensure he does see him.
Sorry, but parenting is exhausting work, generally without praise or relief, and good parenting is even more work. The rules often aren’t simple, nor particularly obvious. One must have the strength of Hercules, the patience of Job, the wisdom of Solomon, and all after a long day at work. In general, the most one can really hope for is not screwing them up so badly they need prison or psychiatric care.
SteveDenver
Very well said. If your child is going to BELIEVE you, they must TRUST you. When they test, you had better pass with flying colors.
Alan down in Florida
@MacAdvisor: Well said.
onthemark
@Scribe38: Your comment implies that you’re black (?). Yeah, strange how that works. Anytime a black child gets beaten in public, the bystanders think it’s “cute.” Anytime a white child gets beaten in public, the bystanders call CPS.
Maude
One rule for me was to tell my adopted son that I love him everyday.
There are others, but a hug, and ‘I Love You’ is the best.
dtlajim
I’m a middle school teacher. This parent is soooooo correct. I’m considered a master at classroom discipline at my school, all because I am consistant and follow through with consequences 100% of the time. It’s all about certain and sure consequences for misbehavior. I wish more of my student’s parents would learn this lesson. Too many of my student’s parents want to “friends” with their children, they would rather be liked then respected.
Ridpathos
@dtlajim: I am a middle school teacher too and I concur.
@MacAdvisor: It’s not about having a lot of rules. It’s knowing which rules you will not budge on and then not budging on them. One of these rules should be respect towards your parents, elders, and others.
Parenting is hard but I would hardly call what many parents do these days parenting. You do have to obtain the skill to not raise monsters that terrorize you and others.
damon459
My simple rule for easy parenting, is being gay and not having any kids.
wpewen
I’m not a parent but I have one guess: In this day and age we can all choose to be or not be parents, unlike the old days when it was just a given. What seems might be really helpful is to determine if you in fact love kids. Not like, love. I observed this in my extended family growing up. If you don’t want to commit to loving a child for life you shouldn’t do it. I am observing a lot of gay guys adopting kids and I am hoping most of them take it that way. I disagree strongly with people who say “the most important” bond is between the couple, if that’s the structure. No. The most important bond for humans is between parent and child and nothing should come between it, even work. I really love children so I am obviously biased. I think once you experience that kind of bond you will always feel empathy with the young.
Scribe38
@onthemark: Different time period. I was spanked until six grade in public school. Every teacher in elementary school had a paddle or taped rulers to discipline us. Today the school and the teacher would be sued.
Ogre Magi
@onthemark: I don’t think that is true
perevier
THANK YOU!! (Sorry for yelling) I am so glad to hear a modern parent speak with some sense! I am so tired of hearing parents in high end department stores repeatedly threatening “time out”, and never following through, and having their little demon seed demand the attention of everyone within screaming range! My parents’ definition of time out was for healing if I talked back or failed to obey. I mellowed from that extreme, but my children (now 28 and 24) are amazing. Discipline is not a bad thing when done properly, and children actually seek it. There has been much research done on this subject. I appreciate someone who loves their children enough to put forth the effort. Kudos!
Fleuron
My aunt to my cousin:
“You’re not a big shot, young lady! You’re a shit pock!”
(AUNT FORCEFULLY SMACKS COUSIN)
MacAdvisor
@Ridpathos:
Rid pathos, I am going to take the time to disagree with you because I think you are dead wrong. I think parents today are not particularly worse, nor particularly better, than parents in any age. I think parenting is not only very hard, but it is nearly impossible to get right 100%. What would be great parenting for one child could be awful for another and parents don’t get kids with personalized instructions books. By and large and for the most part, parents do the best they can with what they’ve got. Are some parents complete slackers? Absolutely! Should some people be spade or neutered to prevented from ever having children? Absolutely! Do some parents do a better job than others? Of course, that is true of all things done by humans. However, all of this has been true forever.
What has really changed is our society today gives parents less help, less support, and fewer resources compared with almost any time in the past. Most children in our country are raised by working parents, mostly two working parents, but many times by only one parent and that parent works. Our neighborhoods are devoid of adults and children are left much too much to themselves. Our schools are starved for resources (in my day, every single one of my schools, from k -12, had a full time nurse and most had a doctor once each week; we had libraries that stayed open after school; we had art, music, debate, sports, and a vast myriad of after school activities, heck, we even had driver’s ed. Such public schools are rare today). For the most part, we don’t have grandparents, aunts, uncles, and others family members involved in parenting. Fully one third of our children are being raised in poverty, because we’ve chosen to send the last thirty five years of increasing wealth to the top tenth of a percent and not making for a broader, deeper middle class. We allowed great organizations, such as the Boy Scouts, to become creatures of bigotry and hate. My own home town of Sacramento had to beg money from our local grocery store chain to keep the swimming pools open last summer (and, for those of you who don’t know Sacramento, it is slightly warmer than Hades in the summer and swimming is about the only reasonable outdoor activity).
So, as a society, we leave stressed out, over-worked, sleep-deprived parents to raise a child with not barely one bit of help from the world at large. As the old saying goes, until the military is holding bake sales and the schools have all the money they need, don’t talk to me about how badly parents are doing. We, as a society are not doing our part. As a great philosopher once said, “first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” Give parents a break. They’ve got a rough, tough, thankless job.
JimboinLA
This is 100% true. The first time I took my three nephews to the beach the older one wouldn’t stop picking on the middle one. I told him to stop or we would leave (we had just gotten there). He didn’t stop. I said ‘That’s it. I’m taking you home.” I packed up all the stuff and the older one was dumbfounded (he was 11). No one had ever followed through with him. He initially refused to leave so as we were walking towards the car I told him he was on his own. He reluctantly followed us (the other two were thrilled that he was being taught this lesson). We drove home in silence. I dropped them off to my surprised sister who thought we would be gone all day. I never had trouble with him again.
Pax
@wpewen: “What seems might be really helpful is to determine if you in fact love kids. Not like, love.”
We can only know if we LIKE kids in general. We come to LOVE the ones we actually have the opportunity to know.