Monday, July 03, 2006

NOBODY TO BLAME

Bailey Stewart left an interesting comment about my last post. She mentioned a father on an Oprah show, who blamed a Spike Lee movie that his 16 yr old kept watching, for the crime this kid committed. Now, who was letting his son watch the Spike Lee movie, in his house? He was, that's who. Of course, Bailey and Sandra are both right about their comments that in our society these days, most people don't take responsibility for their actions. I was merely pointing out the reasons criminals don't take responsibility and where their mind-set is coming from re their actions.

In the two generations since the two WW's, we all know that social mores and attitudes have changed dramatically. The baby boomers were raised by parents who knew the horrors of war, of doing "without", and were only too happy to live in a better world and give everything they could to their children. Then *that* generation gave everything they could to my generation. We are now raising up this generation of youngsters that we complain about the most - no one is responsible for anything and we blame everyone but ourselves.

I'm going to suggest that we can blame two sets of people for this problem (and I'll be ducking tomatoes here, I know it!). First, we can blame ourselves as parents, and second, we can blame lawyers/judges. Whoohoo! There goes the first tomatoe whizzing by now! Parents and lawyers/judges??? What two sub-sets could be more different?

Let's start with the lawyers/judges first. Judges interpret our laws, and lawyers bring ridiculous lawsuits to court. Such as one that happened a few years ago in my home province, where a woman got completely intoxicated at her company Christmas party, had an acccident while driving drunk, and then suied her employer for letting her get that intoxicated. Did her bosses throw that booze down her throat? Of course not. But, she was no disabled and unable to work, so that judge decided her former employer could cough up a chunk of money to take care of her, rather than the government having to take care of her for the rest of her life. No personal responsibility - like having disability insurance, or being smart enough to call a cab, or just not get drunk in the first place.

Judges will make these kinds of rulings against tobacco companies, drug companies, or McDonalds because they will have to pick up the tab, not the government. Lawyers love making money from these kinds of lawsuits. It's at least three years of mortgage payments for them.

Now, parents. (there goes another tomatoe! no I mean really, my DH just came home and found another scratch on the truck, which apparently is my fault). Parents have a four year window with their kids to try and build a foundation of self-esteem, self-sufficiency, a conscientious, and values such as kindness, tolerance, integrity, truth-telling, etc. And I mean this starts from about birth to just around their 5th birthday. After the age of 5 going into kindergarten, they're pretty well set as to what they're going to be like as an adult. Any kindergarten teacher can tell you what kind of parenting a child has had.

When I was Executive Director of a Crisis Shelter for street youth, I really got my eyes opened as to the kind of parenting these kids had and why they were on the street in the first place. The common adage I fought constently in the media was "they could go home if they wanted to - they're welfare bums - they should get a job". The truth was, they had parents who shouldn't have owned a dog, never mind have had a child. These kids were more handicapped then most "special needs" kids I already knew; they were mentally/emotionally crippled, had already been into crime and substance abuse, and were usually so socially damaged it would take years of therapy to get them working again - therapy they weren't going to get.

And there are normal-everyday-parents out there, working, trying-hard parents, who miss that 4 yr window, or parts of it, without meaning to. Somehow their kids miss parts of the wholeness that makes up the total package of a functioning; person who takes responsibility for themselves and their fellow human beings and contributes meaningfully to society. And if these parents have been raised permissively themselves, they'll pass that on to their kids. They take away consequences and don't discipline their kids because it's too much work. So all of a sudden, they have a 16 or 17 yr. old who doesn't listen to them (because they've never had to before), or do anything around the house (because they weren't required to before), and the parents go ballistic. It's like the parents suddenly wake up from some daydream they've been in for the past 15 or 16 yrs and now try to make the kid into something he or she isn't, and fail misterably. So, the tensions mount and the family will break apart.

If you've never taught little Johnny to clean his room at 5, he won't do it when he's 15. Ditto his laundry, washing the car, doing the dishes, or vacuuming. If he's never done chores for an allowance, he won't be motivated to find work for extra money, he'll be hanging out at the mall. If your home was "child-free" all through elementary school to keep it "clutter-free" because you were too tired after work - it'll be "teen-free" now and you'll never know who he's hanging out with.

Parents who let their kid watch Spike Lee movies and then blame their 16 yr old kid's crimes on them, have no one to blame but themselves. It would be nice if the judge would take the kid's pre-court evaluation report into consideration and put some onus on that dad to be part of the reparation for whatever the crime was, because dad was part of the responsibility too. Spike Lee movies are restricted, so technically the kid shouldn't have been watching it, am I right? And, as I said in my last post, watching these things repeatedly is what brings out the need to duplicate something in realitiy to goes beyond the fantasy. So, kid and dad are both to blame.

These are just my opinions on child-rearing from what I saw at the crisis center and on cases I saw in court. Any psychologist will tell you children are highly impressionable and any interaction you have with a young child will leave marks on him/her for good or ill. Something else to think about when we're writing our characters. Not to mention those powerful or dorky lawyers and judges.

5 comments:

Toni Anderson said...

Laurie--you have just made me glad I stay at home--although whether I'm a good parent or not is a totally different matter. I couldn't agree more :)

Denise McDonald said...

Like Toni - I am glad I am a stay-at-home - My kids for the most part a well behaved (they are kids remember) they have a great since of values and know right from wrong. I see kids in our neighborhood w/ no manners, no sense of self worth - it's sad really.

But at the same time - you compared to the baby-boomers world - this world is becoming so vanilla - everything is either uber-PC or harmful so removed (they just took out all the diving boards at the local swimming pools 'cause someone can get hurt - COME ON!)

BTW - my maiden name is Wood =)

Bailey Stewart said...

I'm not throwing any tomatoes - you are absolutely right on all accounts. I am a baby boomer (yes, at the end of the line, but a baby boomer non-the-less) who was raised by WWII parents. We were taught respect, discipline, to work for what you want, etc. I'm probably going to get a few tomatoes thrown myself, but I see a correlation (at least in the states) of discipline being taken out of the home. I'm not saying beatings, but I got spanked a few times and it didn't warp me. I see kids acting out at restaurants and shake my head. If we had done that my father would have taken us outside and given us a good talking to. If we continued, he would take us outside and let's just say the ride home would have been very uncomfortable. We didn't get spanked a lot because we knew we would be spanked. This was always the last resort. We didn't talk back to our parents or any authority figure. We were taught to respect our teachers, police officers, etc. Dr. Spock ruined a lot of kids, IMHO. There, start throwing the tomatoes.

Laurie Wood said...

I left the Crisis Shelter when my DD was nearly a yr old, to start practising what I preached at the parent seminars/high school classes I was giving, LOL! I'm glad I've been a SAHM, and when DD went into kindy, I got sick of people asking me when was I going back to work? I'm still SAHM, and why not? Why should I ship them off to daycare when they're sick and need to be home in their own bed, etc? Plus, my kids needed alot of medical stuff, and Sick Kids Hospital when they were young, but still....it's made them secure, and brought forth their personalities that babysitters would never have been able to do, and I really believe that the sacrifices we made were worth it. Bailey's right - Dr. Spock ruined a whole generation of kids, JMHO! And mothers who didn't do things naturally anymore and felt guilty about it! Our kids are adopted,and I got a front carrier that I carried them in everywhere no matter what I was doing, even in the house. They never laid in their bassinet, unless I my back was killing me. This "distressed" both mothers, :). But, in doing research on other cultures, while I waited the long wait for my babes, I learned that Third World countries *always* have their babies slung beside them, the better to nurse, bond, and sleep. The babies aren't weaned until the next one is born, and aren't encouraged to walk either till then. Anyway, I wanted my babies to bond with me and hear my heartbeat, as they hadn't in the womb, obviously. It worked like a charm with both of them. I'd slide the carrier down to bottle feed them, change them, put them back in the carrier, and away we went. By the time they were 15 lbs. I found it hard on my back. Plus, I obviously didn't drive this way! It really worked though, and they made the transition to the crib at night with no problems. Something to be said for nature's "old" ways, I think. Dr. Spock didn't know what he was talking about!

Toni Anderson said...

I must have missed all the subliminal stuff in Star Trek :)

I was spanked and I'm alright--honest ;-)

Laurie, your babies bonded because you're their mommy and you loved them.