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                                            LEADERSHIP A.K.A QUIEN ES THE GROWN-UP?

Leadership is the action or ability of leading a group of people or an organization123. Leadership involves influencing, inspiring and helping others become their best selves, building their skills and achieving goals along the way1. Leadership also entails setting and achieving goals, tackling the competition, and solving problems decisively and quickly3. Leadership can be demonstrated by anyone, not just those in formal positions of authority1

   

  

    Wow!  What a mouthful!  But the above does cover the major tenets of Leadership.  What in the heck does this have to do with successful parenting (from here on in, "parenting" will refer to "successful" parenting unless otherwise specified)?  Well, here it is.  Ready?  Effective parents are LEADERS -- not friends, not buds, not bruhs, AND DEFINITELY NOT EQUALS.  Okay Okay, this is coming from an  outdated, irrelevant Ol' Doc who "doesn't know your children like YOU do"....heh, heh,  right?  I recently attended one of my dozen grandchildren's recital, and I saw a woman with young kids running all over the foyer, and she had a sweatshirt on that said in big letters "Mother, Mommy, Mom, Bruh".  This ANTI-leadership garment inspired me to opine thus.

     You New Age parents have been saturation-bombed with so much cultural insanity.   Should you assimilate these "new and improved" ideas for child rearing, you are guaranteed to raise a brood of spoiled, arrogant, unprepared adult-infants.  With movies, advertisement, "children" TV shows, schools, universities, and "news" corporations, you have been sitting ducks for the least effective, and I dare say, MOST damaging parenting principles imaginable.  This delusional Ol' Doc has discussed some of this in previous blogs ("Manhood Agonistes", "Doctor Confidential").    These anachronistic ideas, however,  are as dated as old fading Polaroids, as is this blather,  so be forewarned

     Let us review a few of your best Parenting ideas.  You have culled them meticulously from the ever-so-helpful internet "parenting" websites written by man-hating, childless women-advocates of the most toxic of the modern milieu.  Throw in some goofy parenting in your sub conscience from your OWN parents and you have one, hot Parenting mess!  Here are a few of the "winners."

1)  I want to raise HAPPY children

2)  I am going to be soooo much better at this than my parents

3)  Spanking and harsh tones lead to "stressed" little ones, causing future psychological harm

4)  Blood is thicker than water-- so our children simply MUST have a "relationship" with Drunken Uncle Bob; with promiscuous, man-hating drug-adled  Grandma, and Peter Pan Grandpa.  Throw in reckless, violent, arrogant little shit cousins, and you have THICK BLOOD indeed!

5)  I want by kiddies to be my Best Friends

6)  I must always explain my actions IN DETAIL to my pre-schoolers, and NEVER respond to their endless challenges, corrections, defiance with "because I said so!"

7)  I must tell my offspring,  "I love you"at least 25 times a day, so they, and all observers, will KNOW I love them ever-so-much!

8)  When my kids are inconsiderate, destructive or violent with me or their siblings, having them say "sorry" is sufficient counseling, and punishment.  (SUPER harsh punishment is the 5-minute "time-outs" followed by "I love you",  a sweet treat,  making a puzzle with Mommy,  a gift, or even a birthday party to demonstrate "no hard feelings.") 

9) If I treat my growing kids like infants forever, they will always retain their cute, cuddly puppy-like charm.  Forever and ever.

10) I must never chastise my kiddos in public, or while visiting family/friends lest I be thought of as a "mean" parent, even if it greatly disturbs guest at Grandma's or patrons at the restaurant, library, museum.

     There is another model for parenting, honed over the millennia.  This ancient method  requires a trait long extinct, along with the Goony Bird,  That secret sauce is Leadership.  Since the 1960's, this particular ideology has been thrown into the ash heap of history because the modern goal is to create this:

instead of this:

That's right.  Modern parenting's consequence is to cultivate extended, perpetual adolescence.  Your precious little girl is way too talented to even consider marriage, or having babies by age eighteen.  No, no.  She needs to "live her life",  and "play the field" in order to make the "right decision,"    Ol' Doc sees this as euphemism for:  "don't ever grow up",  and "be promiscuous."  Sorry, but yeah.

     Your precious little boy, is WAY too helpless to fend for himself by age 42, so he simply MUST continue to live with mommy and daddy.  And, they MUST buy him a car, because, "how is he supposed to keep his paper route?"  We mustn't even chastise him for physically threatening Mommy when she meekly asks him to take out the trash, because we wouldn't want Little-Big Bully Billy to feel he is unwelcome in our house, and to his Daddy's electric shaver and bathrobe!

     

     But let us transition from what YOU ARE DOING now, to what you might want to  consider for your growing family, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE -- that is, if you want a product different from the effete, arrogant, inconsiderate, selfish, self-centered, lazy, incompetent LOSERS you are currently cultivating.  By 7 years old, most humans have a sub conscience almost set in stone,  so there is some hurry-up to these warnings.

     So here she goes:     ***Mommy and Daddy need to purty pronto meet in private, look each other in the eye, and formulate a SUCCESS PLAN for their MOST PRECIOUS POSSESSIONS.***     This is  Leadership.  You must coordinate and cooperate with each other, you must determine your agreed upon priorities, and you must put aside you egos and subconscious childhood garbage and implement your decisions consistently, confidently, and forcefully, FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR BELOVED CHILDREN'S FUTURE WELL BEING.  There is a lot at stake besides your FEELZ.   Parental virtue-signaling just will not cut it, my resentful, protesting friends.

     Your children are master psychologists by the time they are....wait for it....TWO MONTHS OLD.  So if Mommy and Daddy are not on the same page, guess who ends up ruling the roost?  Yup, cuddly, precious little Mary, or Billy who get more powerful muscles and voices as they get older.  There is no biological phenomena of "terrible twos."  There is only TERRIBLE PARENTING,  Your two-year old is becoming intolerable because they can scream at YOU louder and longer;  and they are physically more capable of rude behavior which you never taught them not to engage in!

     Inconsistent rules, permissiveness, overt marital disagreement, and parental guilt will allow your evil little psychos to cut a wedge into whole family as wide as the Panama Canal.  You know darn well what I'm talking about.  Daddy tells 4-year old Billy to stop hitting Mommy and throwing his food at her, and Mommy interrupts manually spoon-feeding her precious 4 year old to admonish DADDY,  and not innocent precious Little Billy.  "He's only FOUR!" Mommy pleads, and after all,  "that's the way all kids are."  Thus contradicted and shamed,  Daddy shrinks into submission before his family ("yeah, I guess that's right"), and is on the road to becoming the whipping boy of the CHILDREN!  Yeah, little Billy is now confident that Mommy is his personal security detail, and she will defend him against all naysayers, right or wrong-- including that meany Daddy.   Thus begins the march to Kiddie perdition.  The little ones figure out right away how to get WHAT they want, ANY TIME they want, even if they have to create household mayhem in order to accomplish their childish goals -- to be the center of attention, and to get their way.  

     In healthy parenting, it is critical for Parents to display, every minute of every day,  confident Leadership to these gullible, impressionable children, EVEN IF YOU DO NOT FEEL CONFIDENT.  What kind of military commander presents the battle plan with a quivering voice, racked with uncertainty, disagreement, fear, or guilt?   In Doc's time, parents would often advise their fledglings, "its a cold, hard world out there."  And why such negativity?  Simply because the world is indeed "cold and hard."  Yet YOU want to send your kids out there to be skewered by the wolves with ten "I'm sorry's", ten "I love you's", ten 5-minute "time out's", followed by cotton candy to massage their psychological bruising...?  C'mon young parents, you gotta be smarter than that.  They make Second Grade desks small so YOU can no longer fit in them!

    If one of you is correcting your child's behavior, the OTHER parent needs to STAY OUT OF IT.  DO NOT offer a "helpful" support comment over your spouses shoulder;  DO NOT "clarify" the other's orders; DO NOT amplify an ongoing chastisement or punishment.  Your unwarranted input only alerts the child-criminal that Mommy and Daddy are NOT on the same page, and perhaps this disunity can be exploited for more conniving, selfish, misbehaviors.  After all, it is clear that if  "I can make my parents fight over me any time I demonstrate a pouty face my power over them is certain."   These parents will then work tooth and nail to kiss  the miscreant's ass, and be the hero, or "favorite" parent, at least for that moment.

     Only after the smoke settles is it reasonable for the parents to retreat to chambers, close the door, and hash out any disagreements, doubts, or disunity -- BUT NEVER IN FRONT OF THE NAUGHTY BRAT!  Leaders operate with confidence, courage, and unity in front of the troops.  Leaders say what they mean and mean what they say.  Parental guilt,  virtue-signaling,  obsessions with being liked,  have no place in effective Parenting.  These are weeds that will choke out the beauty of your precious garden, and they MUST be slayed for your children's well being, serenity, and the fundamental certainty that "everything will be all right."  It is NOT Leadership that will lead to future psychological damage.  It is your LACK of Leadership, and inconsistency that will create a maladjusted kiddo.  You say "yes" this time, but then in the same context say "no" the next time, and thus you have begun to poison the well with confusion, followed by resentment, then anger, and finally permanent conflict with the kid.  Although your children have neither the experience nor skill to Lead a successful family, you can bet your over-lavish-Christmas- gifting that they will do their best to run the family if you let them.  As Jim Rohn would say:  "Kids will learn just about anything you take the time to teach them;  but if you don't take the time, they are capable of doing just about anything."

     If your child is ill in some form or another show a brave face.  If the storm outside is loud and violent; if his team loses or the coach does not put him in;  if she gets less Easter eggs than the big kids, more of the same.  Instill courage, determination, and acceptance in them, even if you have to "fake it to make it."  The Parent Leader is someone who passes-on the message of hope, valor and faith, and  does NOT pass on the diseased thinking of fear, uncertainty and doubt.   Even if you personally regard every little hangnail with mental torment, whining, terror and gloomy doom, PRETEND FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR CHILDREN'S EQUANIMITY, that "everything is gonna be all right."  Is this lying?  My friends, only the  ignorant (or selfish) parent would believe this nonsense.  Instilling virtue in your child is not only NOT a lie or deceit, it is an imperative that will fill your children's vital subconscious-self with the qualities that you always pretend that you want, but which your ACTIONS belie.

     The Parent Leader does NOT pick a "favored" child, ever, never, no way, no how!  Picking a favorite child is not only harmful to the sibs, it is MOST harmful to the FAVORITE, believe it or not.  "Oh no!" you protest, "I luuuuv ALL my children equally."  Well, that may be true, but you might just have the tendency to TREAT one of them differently either out of prejudice or pity, or some subconscious, childhood garbage that causes that "special" kid to be treated with extraordinary deference, favoritism and toxic permissiveness.  He is blond and blue eyed;  she looks just like me; he is tall; he is swift, fearless and daring, etc.  OR, even worse, you pity your sick, homely, or slow child to the point where you treat him as a Special Olympics cripple, paying attentions to that pathetic creature to the exclusion of the other chicks in the nest.  You then unfairly foist upon  the sibs responsibilities of parenting --  coddling, pitying and sacrificing for their less-capable sibling.  You force your "normal" children to exert YOUR parental responsibilities at an age when they are ill-prepared to take on such burdens.  Either way, the "favored" grows up bullet-proof.  Less punishments and more praise, by and by leading to arrogance,  bullying, irresponsibility, recklessness, condescension, and with many males, violent personalities.  Paradoxically, these "favored"  often grow to be the weakest most dependent, sociopathic failures of the lot.

     A word about Parental Emotions.  A Parental disagreement is part of normal and healthy family life.  Airing a minor disputes in front of the kids can afford a excellent opportunity to teach the kids how to settle conflict in a healthy manner.  EMOTING , however, for the sake of winning a battle, gaining a perverted advantage, or eliciting pity or guilt, are very unhealthy and a very poor demonstration in front of the children.  Daddy whacking Mommy around the house is very bad;  but so is Mommy bursting into tears at some trivial slight.  Eliciting the children's PARTICIPATION with a group-cry is cringingly harmful to these emotionally impressionistic youngsters.  Keep a stiff upper lip for goodness sake, and control your emotions so that your children are not damaged by these outrageous and narcissistic displays.  You have no right to dump your emotional garbage on these  innocent psyches, which you pretend to cherish "above all things."

     One last point here. Do not pretend you are sending your children for "counseling" because you love them, because you care so much, or because you want the best for their futures.  Nope.  Stop lying to yourselves.  You are shipping them off to "surrogate parents"  because you are UNWILLING COWARDS who simply refuse to do what is necessary to bring order, harmony and peace to your family.  You are abandoning the "problem" child to a school counselor, psychologist, social worker, or psychiatrist because as a virtue-signaler you seek to impress family and friends that you "will do anything" for the well-being of your children.    Do ANYTHING?  Right -- anything except what will actually work, anything that will actually help this poor kid -- i.e. your courage, your determination and YOUR BALLS-- that will turn bad kid into good kid,  YOU, yourself, and ONLY you can change his future.  YOU are his Parents, he loves you -- the Mental Health Professional will NEVER do what is necessary -- they will do only what will please you, the lawyers and the insurers.  You are a perpetual source of income since therapy is NEVER "completed."  If you doubt the rambling of the Ol' Doc, hurry to Amazon and order "Bad Therapy" by Abigail Shrier for actual corroborating data.  But hey, who needs data when you gots FEELZ!

     Let us wrap up this Parent Leader stuff up for now.  It is the most crucial aspect of healthy child-rearing,  A unified, coordinated selfless Mommy and Daddy is the most critical of any discussion focused on raising good and thriving children,  Unless the Parental Unit has got its shit TOGETHER, the outcome for the family will be discord, confusion, mayhem and frustration,  Parental Leadership is a direct consequence of Parental Harmony.  Take it from the Ol' Doc -- if you wanna be an effective Leader for your kids, FIRST be a loving, selfless husband or wife.  Consider the Prayer of St. Francis as a starting point in fixing, or improving your marital bonds, so that you may engage in outstanding Parental Leadership:

Lord, make me a channel of Thy peace;
that where there is hatred, I may bring love;
that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;
that where there is discord, I may bring harmony;
that where there is error, I may bring truth;
that where there is doubt, I may bring faith;
that where there is despair, I may bring hope;
that where there are shadows, I may bring light;
that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort, than to be comforted;
to understand, than to be understood;
to love, than to be loved.

For it is by self forgetting, that one finds.
It is by forgiving, that one is forgiven.
It is by dying, that one awakens to Eternal Life.

Amen.

                                                           -- DOC