Parenting is Sooooo Haaaaard ! The Problem
- “Gentle parenting” can encourage emotional turbulence – even violence – in children as they lash out, desperate for an adult in charge"
From "Bad Therapy: Why Kids Aren't Growing Up" by Abigail Shrier
“There is a principal
which is proof against all information,
which is proof against all arguments,
which cannot fail to keep man in
everlasting ignorance;
that principal is -
Contempt prior to investigation !”
― DISCLAIMER: ANY RESEMBLANCE TO REAL LIFE PEOPLE IS PURELY INTENTIONAL, ah, COINCIDENTAL. SHOULD, HOWEVER, YOU IDENTIFY WITH ANY OF THESE RAMBLINGS, YOU HAD BETTER LIGHT A FIRE UNDER YOUR ASS AND DO SOME PONDERING, FOLLOWED BY ACTION,,, JUST KIDDING, THESE ARE NO MORE THAN THE RANTINGS AND RAVINGS OF A SENILE, IRRELEVANT OL' DOC, WHO IS CLEARLY DELUSIONAL. IGNORE ALL OF THE FOLLOWING, BETTER YET, STOP HERE AND GO NO FURTHER.
ONLY a Tsunami-type catastrophe could've brought the Ol' Doc back from retirement. No, its not the gray hair starting to pop up in the perfectly coiffed hair and/or 3-day beard of the Millennial. And no, its not the imperfections of the home expresso machines. And its certainly not the intolerable brick-colored brick, that just SCREAMS to be painted white. No, no, this is something even more vital than the above...if you can imagine such a catastrophic occurence.
The 'Ol Doc read a book by Abigail Shrier entitled "Bad Therapy: Why Kids Aren't Growing Up", and it inspired this wheezin' geezer to get off his 14 hour-a-day eazy-chair, kick off his slip-on slippers, get back on his Metamucil and do some lectura, which for those from Rio Linda, means "lecture" in Espanol....which for those from....oh nevermind.
After more than 40 years as a FAMILY physician, over 40 years as a parent, and over 11 years as a grandparent, I HAVE ABSOLUTELY ZERO CRED on this topic. So if you are looking for useful information on parenting, you've come to the wrong place. What we are promoting here is the ranting and raving of an aged, over-the-hill, out-of-date, danger-to-his-patients, wanna-still-be-relevant looney Doc.
So....parenting eh? You parents with under 18 year old kiddos, know all about the how-to , right? Antifa, safe-spaces, sky-rocketing divorces, plummeting birth rates (didn't know that, huh?), child mass murderers, growing gangs peddling drugs to grammar-schoolers, ubiquitous ADHD and rivers flowing with Ritalin, young men gollum-like video-gaming in Mommy's basement, and the "Mental Health" gargantua rivaling lawyers in power and influence.....no biggie, right? Nothing to see here, move along....
The Greatest Generation really was The GOAT....except for one teeny-tiny detail that they "adjusted." That detail, my compadres, is the missing effort to transmit their greatness to their children. That's right. They came back from 12 years of mind-numbing Depression, followed by the horrors of 5 years of WORLD WAR, including 500,000 dead Americans, and countless hundreds of thousands of physically and mentally wounded, AND decided they would parent their chillin's differently and BETTER than did their own parents. The 1920-30's Mom and Dad were way too harsh. I mean, no need for such strict parenting now that Good Times Are Here Again, we have refrigerators, radios, TV, phones and great automobiles. Right? Why not "protect" our kids from such suffering and harshness, let's rethink thousands of years of parenting, and let's raise SUPER WELL-ADJUSTED LITTLE PRE-HARVARD ENROLLEES!
The result of this largess, i.e. "modern thinking" was to produce The Worst Generation -- you got it, THE BABY BOOMERS -- those lovable, huggable, free-spirits, unencumbered by outdated nonsense like delayed gratification, discipline, courtesy, the Ten Commandments, integrity, character, honesty, sacrifice and selflessness. These "free-spirit", non-spanked, chastised-only-in-soothing-tones brats, morphed easily into hippies, Commie useful idiots, selfish, self-centered, Haight Ashbury, boob-exposing, hallucinogen-tripping, arm-pit grooming dumbasses, that we have all grown to know and love But wait! There's more! They transmitted these cutesy qualities to their Millennial broods, who in turn graced us all by keeping the momentum going with Gen X, Z , Alpha, Beta, and Kroegers. Except, like defective in-bred genetic recombinations, each iteration became WORSE -- New and Improved generations. This has resulted in the current crop of "parents" who literally have NO IDEA HOW TO RAISE WELL-ADJUSTED, PRODUCTIVE COMMUNITY CITIZENS, and who subconsciously believe that if they mirror the Hollywood family, "alls well that ends well." A more colossal error in judgement we have rarely witnessed, and will be lamenting for generations to come.
Other than the obvious abject failure vis-a-vis American Society that Modern Parenting has dumped on the world, there is this little realized mysterious three-fold secret. 1) Children under 13 can be successfully transformed from arrogant, discourteous shits, into polite, productive, God-fearing, parent-fearing pre-Adults. Imagine that! And 2), the longer young parents wait to actually parent, i.e. LEAD, their children's development, the more arduous the task. And 3), an infant is readily teachable, cognizant and eager for direction by age 4 months -- AND MAYBE SOONER. ( Oh, I see and hear you out their protesting, "bu-bu-but....newborns, infants and taah-dlers are merely squeeze-toys, cuddly little puppies that we can dote over, and virtue-signal with to all of our friends and family....", am I right? heh, heh). Can teenagers be changed? For sure, but this is such a monumentally difficult task that it is so way above the brainwashed comprehension of the Modern Parent, that we will tactfully skip that battle until the Modern Parent can successfully take their fledgling, wobbly first steps at actually taking LEADERSHIP of their young families. By the way, your children are BEGGING this of you, so this Ol' Doc is doing a community service by haranguing you this way, even though napping and watching "Walker: Texas Ranger" re-runs is much preferable.
So there it is, my loyal three readers, including my mother-in-law -- modern parents are literally, as Abigail Shrier so aptly details, abrogating their most vital responsibilities, and handing them over to Celebrities, school counselors, nurses, teachers, principals, and most sinister of all, MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS, As Ronald Reagan once said, " Hello, I'm a Mental Health Professional, and I'm here to help", or something like that.... This Ol' Doc has emerged from the comforts of retirement -- applesauce and foot warmers -- to discuss some solutions to this entirely fixable cultural malady. NOTHING is more important to society than a healthy, well-adjusted family, and I aim to toss in a couple of licks towards helping Modern Parents go from confused, bewildered virtue-signalers, to ADULT parents who understand that, like SLED DOGS, children need their Mommy and Daddy to be LEADERS. Children need their parents to quit shrugging their shoulders and acting as if the well-ordered household is such a gall-darn mystery. You do not need childless "experts" to tell you how to raise your "MOST PRECIOUS POSSESSIONS." (Isn't that how you always refer to your kids? And yet at the same time you hire nannies, and allow counselors to DO YOUR JOB?)
Don't worry you snickering doubters. We will cover such topics in detail. Golden Oldies such as how to instill healthy FEEDING, PLAY, CHORES, MANNERS, and promote self-parenting by the kiddos themselves. That is, of course, if you can imagine YOU YOURSELVES accomplishing these things WITHOUT a therapist, or without referring to the Lesbian Parenting Web blogs! Too, have you ever considered how your dear lovables ought to behave as guests in someone else' house? In a restaurant? In the Library? At the market? AT SCHOOL?!!? Well, Ol' Doc Adams will regale you with these discussions and so much more (like 'gasp' spanking?! As well as communicating to the kids important commands in "harsh" tones? Lions, and Tiger, and Bears, oh my!) The goal? I mean, MY goal? 'chuckle', is to create so much animosity at the writer of these heretical ideas, that you try to get the Ol' Doc "canceled." No worries though, I have about as many loyal readers as you have cogent parenting strategies.....heh, heh. See ya soon!
------ DOC
