Kids: the world isn’t yours to take, and the sooner you figure that out, the better off you’ll be.

I’ve always known that there was a continuing trend towards alternative education and the upbringing of children, but in recent years it has gotten even more obvious that there is a leaning towards the “feel good”, non-consequential instruction of our youth, mainly started and perpetuated through our public school system where, suddenly, you can no longer “win” or “lose”, everyone simply succeeds or fails together. I’m unsure if this is derived from our crappy legal system’s kneejerk reflex for litigation or simply because we have become wishy-washy, but it is, at the heart, a disturbing trend.

The world simply doesn’t work that way, in an “all’s fair” manner, and preparing our children for a reality that doesn’t exist is poor parenting at best, and abuse of perfectly good minds at worse.

Tony Woodlief, author of the pamphlet, Raising Wild Boys into Men: A Modern Dad’s Survival Guide, has outlined this shift of concentration on fairness and entitlement in an article in The Wall Street Journal, entitled, “Don’t Suffer the Little Children“. He quotes from the economist Thomas Sewall who, 20 years ago, separated human world attitudes into “constrained” and “unconstrained” ones, the latter being the utopial, free-love folk, who believe in the goodness of humankind and their potential to be geniuses and philanthropists, whereas the former understand that, while this is a nice sentiment indeed, some jackass is still going to screw them over at the used car dealership if they turn their back.

While the unconstrained worldview teaches that traditions and customs are to be distrusted as holdovers from benighted generations, those of us with the constrained view believe it’s good to make our children address their elders properly, refrain from belching at the table and wear clothes that actually cover them.

This I cannot disagree with, and will vehemently argue that, in general, respect carries you 300% farther than disrespect, even if it seems that the situation would warrant a more informal attitude. Besides that, children learn best by example and by repetition of core activities, and to relax those in the face of a casual situation means you are asking for them to forego the principles at the most inopportune times. I know we will have to force our children to act in a proper manner in the privacy of our own home, when the curtains are pulled, so when we get into a public situations we won’t find one of them buried up to their hips in the cocktail sauce, cheeks bulging with carefully stowed shrimp.

He continues with a passage in which I start to see a few places where I differ slightly from his opinions:

It’s not surprising, then, to see Mr. Sowell approvingly cite Edmund Burke’s observation that traditions provide “wisdom without reflection.” This is lived out in our house by the dictum that parents are to be obeyed first, and politely questioned later. That seems oppressive to parents with the unconstrained worldview, who want to nurture Junior’s sense of autonomy and broad-minded reasoning. It’s awfully useful, however, when Junior is about to ride his bike into the path of an oncoming car. Obedience may be a dirty word in progressive schools and enlightened parenting circles, but it saves lives.

At first, the Sowell quote got me in a bit of a tizzy as the subphrase, “without reflection”, is a sure red flag in any philosophically-geared mind, as the entire school is about investigation into statements of truth. However, he rescues this by the qualification that the parents are to be, “politely questioned later”. However, I wonder how far Mr. Woodlief’s opinions go in terms of what his children can and cannot question, and how much freedom they are allowed to explore in non-lifethreatening environments.

While I can fully agree (and will probably practice) a “obey now, think later” approach when it comes to most commands handed down from me, as a parent I feel I also have an obligation to let my child, in controlled and monitored ways, explore options and ideas without restriction. Younger children will not, obviously, be given as much leeway, and the ‘letting go’ portion of my parenting experience will no doubt be fraught with second-guessing and much trepidation, but will be necessary in larger and larger amounts as my child begins to take on the responsibilities once assigned fully to me.

Essentially, controlling your children to the utmost will not do any more good than allowing them completely free reign, because it denies them the ability to screw up. That being said, unlike the unconstrained folks, swift and decisive correction and explanation must follow any misdemeanour so as to provide the necessary instruction to the child. The delicacy of this entire situation is that there is a very thin tightrope to balance on between control and freedom, and that is the line both me and my wife must strive to walk as best as possible.

I am absolutely enamoured, however, with Woodlief’s admonition that children are not entitled to anything and the recent trend towards a sense of ‘ownership’ of their lives and opportunities, yet without the responsibility of the consequences of their actions, has steamed me and continues to be something I swear my children will not exhibit in their personalities.

You are born in bondage and should be darn grateful for the free room and board. Besides, if you want to talk about restrictions on liberty you can take it up with your mother, who hasn’t had an uninterrupted trip to the bathroom since 2001.

This sounds so incredibly like my own parents that I grin every time I read it. I was frequently told, as a child, that I was welcome to walk out at any time, but I was to leave my clothes on the floor and take nothing with me, as none of it was mine to take. Needless to say, nobody ever saw my bare ass marching down the road with a thumb in the air, so I apparently got the point or wasn’t mad enough to make good on my threat to “run away forever”.

At the heart, Woodlief’s article revolves around one of the principles I’ve believed for a long time — humans are, at their core, beings driven by greed without any sort of safeguards at all. We are greedy for food, love, money, jobs, power, position, recognition, acknowledgement…without any restriction on these tendencies, society would fracture into factions each interested in obtaining the best situation for themselves to the exclusion of the other sects, and ultimately, to the exclusion of each other. We can observe this today as the gap between the poor and the rich widens and the middle class bands together to take on the rich at their own game, yet in a completely self-serving manner.

Everyone is, essentially, out for themselves. It is the principles of morality and ethics, coupled by a sense of responsibility, accountability, and compassion that keeps us from becoming an awful, rouge species. As parents, we are therefore charged with the correct instruction and corralling of our children so that when they have grown and taken over at the wheel of the world, they do not wreak chaos in the fabric of non-evil give-and-take that so many have worked so hard to establish. The last thing I want is my kid sending Earth to the shitter because I failed to whack his/her bottom when they needed it.

Regardless of my abilities and accomplishments, however, they’re going to end up policing the ones that do run amok, which will probably include a few children themselves, the lucky schmucks. Best of luck to all of us.