Some people shouldn't be parents
I rarely hate anyone. Of all the people I've met in my whole life, I've liked well over 99% of them. That's why I'm a firm believer that most people are good, and if good people were given freedom, bad people would get squashed.
Tipper Gore, I hated. In the mid-80s, my favorite things were football, heavy metal music, and Dungeons and Dragons. Yeah, I know it's funny to hear about a metalhead athlete who played D&D, but I did along with several of my other football buddies, along with some straight up geeks too. There goes another stereotype.
Well, Tipper Gore tried to ban two of my sacred loves - heavy metal music and Dungeons and Dragons. You know those little warning labels on albums? Those were the compromise. She really wanted my albums off the shelves for good. She apologized about it years later, but I don't buy apologies. "Sorry I tried to ban your music." No, I don't buy that.
"Dungeons and Dragons is a pathway to Satanism." No, parental neglect is a pathway to Satanism. In fact, most of the people I played D&D with were God-loving Christians, and they were all wonderful people. We played as good characters fighting against evil. It was like taking Narnia and making a game out of it. I don't think I need to inform anyone that Narnia was written by one of the greatest Christian scholars of the past century.
I have known real life Satanists. You know what they all had in common? Their parents were too busy to spend time with them. So they did anything they could for attention.
I had the misfortune of working with someone who idolized Tipper Gore. He thought the government should censor music, because he "didn't have time" to check out what his kids were listening to. I responded that if he didn't have time to parent his kids then he shouldn't be a parent. He flipped out. Responsible parent he was not and of course he got mad because I called him on it.
The other extreme you've probably all seen too. They're the parents that think that any problem with children can be solved by throwing money at them. Once again though, they never consider that maybe the kids need quality time with them. I saw this all the time at the daycares my wife worked at. Parents tossed money at the kids like someone at a strip club throwing money at a stripper, but do you think they ever spent time with the kids? Nothing against money, but these people mistake money for parenting skills.
Yes, simply put, parents should parent their kids. Not the government, not Tipper Gore, not the village but parents. Parents have been successfully raising their children for hundreds of thousands of years. If we manage somehow to not blow ourselves up, parents will successfully raise their children for thousands of years more, unless of course they want to pass off the responsibility to the government like a lot of these selfish people do.
If someone is too busy to parent their children, then they should have put some thought into it before they popped them out. He should have kept it in his pants and she should have kept her legs closed. It's people like these who are producing the brats that everyone else is sick of.
posted by The Zombieslayer @ 7:36 AM
30 Comments:
A-men! You just made most of the arguments I often use to explain why I don't want kids. Too many people put too little thought into it. I have put more thought into NOT having kids than probably most people put into having them. Kids are not a social stepping stone, they're not the key to your marital problems, they're not an accessory like a handbag, and not something to have just because of social expectations. If you truly want them - more power too yah. Have fun, but know it's a responsibility unlike any other. My family has learned to stop asking me about it.
Oh, and Fuck Tipper Gore. I hated her too. (I probably should have censor that, but then the irony would have been just too great)...
Ha!
Great post and loud AMEN!!
If parents were doing their jobs we wouldn't need the government to step in and "help" us. Whenever I bought a tape (cds were unaffordable then) I was to bet on the fact that my parents would play it in the car on the way home. I wasn't sitting in the back seat with my headphones on- tuning mom and dad out.
Have you seen these kids?
The parents take their kids out to dinner and the kids have their iPods in their ears. What?!
I'm not paying good money for a meal I can make at home so that you can sit there and pretend you're not with me!
Ridiculous.
How did they get that iPod? With their own, hard earned money they got for washing the family's Escalade?
Doubt it.
Laura is right, children are not accesories to your life style. They do not revolve around YOUR schedule. If you're too busy to parent what you created, you're too busy.
Unfortunately, the kids find this out the hard way and the daycares end up filling in the gaps.
I worked in daycare too.
One little girl came to us right when we opened at 7am in her PJs and we fed her breakfast and combed her hair and dressed her. The dad picked her up at 6pm, when we closed. He probably fed her dinner and put her to bed.
We raised her.
Well-said, Laura.
And good comments, Zombie.
Am I the only one that feels sorry for kids who spend all day in daycare?
Great post!!!
Raemius - Given that a lot of people have serious money problems, I can see why some people are forced to put their kids in daycare. But in an ideal situation, I strongly believe that one parent should be at home with the kids.
As for kids in daycare, yes, I feel sorry for them. Do parents actually believe that someone being paid minimum wage could be a better parent than they can? Sadly, in some cases, yes.
Southerngirl - Heh. Hasn't failed me either. ;)
Levi - Thanks.
Sadie - Ah, so you know daycare. My wife was called "Mom" all the time by kids. Sad thing is she was often more a mother than their own mother. As for the iPod in the ears at dinner comment, that's equivalent to my generation watching TV while their parents sat at the dinner table. Big no-no in our household.
Thom - One of my friends used to joke about when he was dictator, he'd do this and that. I told asked him to appoint me Minister of Reproduction when he became dictator. A joke, of course, but sometimes...
Laura - Kids are not a social stepping stone, they're not the key to your marital problems, they're not an accessory like a handbag, and not something to have just because of social expectations.
Sad thing is I know at least one real life example of each one of these. Wonderful comments, Laura. I'm in agreement with you totally.
I understand if someone has to leave their children in daycare by need, however what I'm seeing so much of these days is mid to high income families basically putting more priority on having that second SUV than hey do on raising their children. That's what's wrong with the picture lately. Now, in Canada anyway, the government is looking at subsidizing daycare, not only for low income, but everyone. So now, my taxes go to subsidize the sliding sunrof on the new SUV. Not fair. I'm very very fortunate (thank God) that we can afford to have my wife stay home.
I think we're just used to paying to get things done now, including raising children. Everything can be contracted out.
When I still worked in daycare, I was taking child development classes for more units.
I did a study on how many families eat dinner at the dinner table around 6pm.
In the daycare I worked at where we had, on average, 35-40 kids...there were two families that sat at the dinner table and ate dinner (around 6).
I was flabbergasted.
What happened to that tradtion?
Man, when I was growing up, it was dinner at 6, we all sat down together and I'd be a monkey's uncle if we didn't have a green salad every night. Needless to say: We're doing it this way in our house.
Bridget - Get a license or get neutered!!
I better swallow before reading your comments. I almost had orange juice come out of my nose.
Sadie - That's really sad. I think family dinner is a good tradition. I've seen another statistic that fathers spend 7 minutes a day on average with their kids. I sincerely hope that's wrong.
Raemius - No arguments from me. That's really cool you can afford to have one parent at home. I really wish there was more of that.
I'm really against gov't subsidized daycare for everyone but low income folks or single parents. That's a huge slap in the face to two groups of people - people with no kids and families with one parent staying at home raising their kids. You just gave me an idea for a post. :)
Thom - That's sick. Totally agreed people like her shouldn't have kids. Man, I hope that kid's shoulders didn't get separated. Those never heal.
GROSS ALERT - DON'T EAT RIGHT NOW IF YOU READ THIS
A big problem in Northern California is meth abuse. This is causing a lot of parental neglect, not just ignoring screaming kids, but keeping kids in their soggy diapers for a day at a time and the authorities finding their kids with severe infections as well as malnourishment. These people should be sterilized too. The kids rarely recover because there never was that parental love in their most crucial years.
I wouldn't go so far as to say sterilization - since it is a basic human right to found a family. People have been sterlized against their will in history for what society deemed good reasons before. That's a fine line to tread.
I would consider mandatory, reversible birth control for everyone until such time as you take a parenting course and reach a certain age. But then, again, who decides who is qualified and why? No one will agree on that either.
We have a HUGE meth problem in our county. The police blotter in the local paper is always filled with meth arrests.
I feel so helpless when I think of the children that are exposed to this epidemic. One bust in our community was a woman that lived in a trailer with her baby. The baby was crawling around admist all those chemicals and supplies the mother was using to make meth.
How horrifying is that?
Putting meth addicts in rehab is not the solution. We have a huge issue with repeat offenders. I think something extreme needs to be done--not sure what.
I agree with most of what you say. I don't agree with censorship for the sake of kids not being exposed to things. I'm very liberal with my son - we listen to things and watch things together so we can talk about them. If he doesn't watch them with me, then he'll watch/listen with a friend and get misinformation. The only point of contention is that there is nothing wrong with the "village" concept of raising kids because I'm not arrogant enough to think that I have all the best answers about raising my son. My family (parents and grandparents) have helped out tremendously and I really don't know where my son and I would be without our little "village".
Everyone else here has said it all, and my wife has experienced much of this running a daycare. One of her clients was a single bipolar mom that we finally "fired" due to her erratic behavior, and her little girl was a violent tyke. She's since gotten knocked up by another guy.
The problem with Meth is often the type of rehab received. There's no money for appropriate care, counseling and addressing the issues that drive someone to use meth in the first place. No "throwing money" at it doesn't solve the problem, but drug problems don't develop in a vacuum. They're part of societal problems as a whole.
DPA has been doing a lot of policy work with Meth lately. A lot of work in California in particular.
We have a huge meth problem here in Nashville, as well as a huge unfit-parent problem.
I'd vote ZS for Minister of Reproduction!
MOST of the parents I know are in this category. Wait a minute, ALL of them are!! I just did some thinking and everyone I know with kids has them in daycare from 8 a.m.-6 p.m. They take them home, feed them take-out food, bathe them and put them to bed. Weekends, these parents play catch-up on their household chores or hire a sitter so they can go to social functions or sporting events. They all take separate vacations with Dad going to Nascar or hunting or fishing trips with their buddies and Mom going to exotic places with her girlfriends. No family vacations for any of them!
When the kids get older, they overbook them with sports, church activities, Scouts, dance lessons, etc.
My husband and I have always HAD to work. We've NEVER had daycare for either of our kids. We took jobs so that one of us was home with the kids. I work days and my husband works nights. This may explain why our kids are 14 years apart. On the rare days that our schedules overlapped, my Mom watched the kids.
All the parents we know have 2 kids, exactly 2 yrs apart and are talking about having MORE kids. Why? They don't spend time with the kids they have!!
People need to set priorities in their lives BEFORE they decide to have kids.
As you can tell, this is a real sore subject with me!
Thom - I was unaware of that. When I was in Seattle last, it was heroin. I didn't realize that there's a big meth problem in WA as well.
Laura - No, not forced sterilization. I remember our history of using this unfairly against Native Americans. Not a bright part of our history. However, there are temporarily sterility solutions for drug addicts and the insane who shouldn't be parents right away. I've known people who were drug addicts who turned out to be wonderful people later when they sobered up, but they were rotten people on the drugs and shouldn't have been parents then. I see what you're saying here, and it's an entirely new can of worms to open. I do believe in sterilizing the retarded, which we did do up until about the 60s.
Sadie - That's sad because where you live is beautiful. I'd imagine that there are a lot of unemployed folks out there, and that's one of the causes of meth use. That's how it is in Butte County, which also has a huge meth problem.
Jen - In that respect, you are a lot like my wife. She's very open about stuff, explaining things to him so he could understand why. Your kid will have an inquiring mind, which is a good thing. As for your village, technically, that's the traditional family, which I'm very fond of. I strongly believe one should live close by relatives. That's actually why we moved to Texas for a year. Junior had some quality time with his Grandparents and Uncles.
Jason - Why is that? I have yet to meet an annoying erratic person without kids. Don't they know that the rest of the world sees them as a pain in the ass?
Laura - Agreed that economics is part of the problem. Unemployed people who sit around and have nothing to do are much more likely to get involved in drugs than someone who's working full-time. Solutions? Well, we could stop getting rid of all our manufacturing jobs overseas. I bet a lot of meth addicts are the next generation after their parents had their factory jobs moved overseas.
Bsoholic - All right, I got one vote! ;)
Tshsmom - People need to set priorities in their lives BEFORE they decide to have kids.
Well said. And what you two did was very cool. Junior's now old enough that we both can work, but the Mrs. will still take some time off and just spend with him. If this job goes full-time though, she's going back to school but we'll live very close to my work. I want to have a lot of time with Junior, maybe coach one of his teams. It's all about quality time. I wish I could beat that into some of these parents' heads. If they can't spend quality time with their children, they shouldn't have kids.
ZL - yeah, it's one of those economic realities for the single parent.
But as you said, studies have shown that it's not that big a difference economically to have one parent stay at home with two parents. I wish parents would stop having money as their number one priority and make their number one priority raising their kids. We'd have a lot less crime, a lot less suicide, depression, drug addiction, etc.
Wow... good post and you can see there are alot of people who agree with you. I have to point out though (playing a little devils advocate)that most people, if asked, would agree with you and consider themselves 'good parents'even if they were the abusive ignorant or detatched. Most people want to beleive that they are good and are doing their bests, in fact most people are trying to do thier best even if it is absolutly horrible.
That is where the importance of the 'village'or community or family comes in. It is up to the people who are involved in the childs life to help them if thier parents cannot. Too many people turn their heads and say its not their problem, or they shouldn't get involved in another families problems... its a cowardly cop out I say.
A psyche exam is definitly in order for anyone who wishes to contribute to the world population. Other then that, its all of our jobs to treat people/children with care.
"A psyche exam is definitly in order for anyone who wishes to contribute to the world population. "
While in theory this sounds like a great idea, and I agree the human gene pool could use a skimming, who's standards of "normal" do we use to evaluate who is fit? THere's certain things we can all agree on, for instance, drug use. But what about someone with non-traditional beliefs. Not to play the religion card here, but it's illustrative of the point. Some religious traditions are considered "strange" to the maintream. Could someone who practices Santeria be denied the right to have children because they're just too strange? Who decides? And don't get me started on Gay/Lesbian rights - which would no doubt come into play with this plan.
"Experts" even disagree on what good parenting or optimum mental health is - so who do we believe?
Clothosfate - I was beginning to think you got eaten by a polar bear you've been gone so long. Welcome back. :)
Yeah, trust me, I understand the village concept. The problem with it is like you said, some people are convinced they're excellent parents when in fact they suck. As a coach, I try to get as involved as possible with the kids in a positive way. You'll know right away who's a good and bad parent. But I know better than to challenge their "parental skills." The best I can do is for the few months I have them, set a good example and hope they figure it out.
Laura - Understood. But we can agree on drug addicts. Also, I think some things all cultures agree are psychotic. There's a big difference between what people do when they're at a religious function and things they do when walking down the street.
I think I'm what could be classified as a neo-hippie. I would love to buy land, build houses and a school, let people live on it for affordable rent, and build a school and a library in the middle. Unfortunately, this is the real world and I have to settle for teaching the children of alcoholics and wife-beaters. Whatever doesn't kill us...
you forgot to mention hillary ZS, remember "It takes a village to raise a child" right... lets just abandon all forms of capitalism while were at it. And its a simple fact of "survival of the fittest" if your not one of the fittest you shouldn't be able to breed until a certain point, if ever. That's why at heart I'm a Darwinist, and from what you've said I take it that you are too ZS.
i think i hate 99% of the people i meet...but i like what you wrote!
*five*
PC - I don't see how you do it. Parents nowadays seem so indifferent towards education that it would drive me nuts dealing with them. Funny, I always had better success dealing with the kids than with their parents (as a coach and a tutor, never been a teacher).
Allison - That right there is straight up projection. Yes, I'm so glad you pointed that out. She was so quick to judge everyone else but forgot to raise her own kids. Yet another reason not to like her.
Jasonsan - Thanks. that kid who's over-sensitive never grew a pair of cajones. I imagine his father never was a real father to him. Geez, 19 years old? yeah, those parents are the other extreme. Spoil their kids rotten. I'll have to do a post on spoiled kids that I've had to deal with one of these days.
Ben - yes I am a Darwinist. And I strongly believe Darwin and Christianity go hand and hand. Darwin was a Christian. All he was trying to do was put order into God's creations. It's actually politics that tried to make Darwin out to be anti-Christian. In fact, Darwin was very pro-Christian. I wish people would bother to read his book on evolution before they judged it.
Oh, and I don't believe in equality. I'm very anti-equality in a matter of fact. However, I strongly believe in equality of opportunity. I think you know what I mean. People should have equal opportunity, but if they're too lazy to hack it, then people who work hard should get more rewards.
Tenxin - Well, that's all right. You're still funny.
I hate roaches and politics. Not people.
Great post, Mr. Zombieslayer!
Quote for theeeeeeeee DAY
'If someone is too busy to parent their children, then they should have put some thought into it before they popped them out'
couldn't have said it better
"Yes, simply put, parents should parent their kids. Not the government, not Tipper Gore, not the village but parents."
Very nicely said.
A little cliche, but I do i for the children.
I didn't know anything about the meth and the problem it has become until I read the cover article in the last Newsweek. They have photos in there. I had nightmares for two nights! I was absolutely horrified at the sight of the side effects.
As for your post, I find it particularly painful on a personal level. I see all these parents who don't want to be parents or don't do much parenting to begin with, yet here I am DYING to become a parent! It hurts, it really does. I just want a little kid (preferrably three) whom I can play with, teach them, read books to them, show the world, find out what they're talented at and encourage them to use their talents. Just a kid to raise as a caring and responsible adult. A kid who can one day make an impact on our world with something ingenuis. Because we all know every kid has that ability! It's all about finding it and nurturing it.
Yeah, take away their licenses, I say. Take away their kids. Give them to more deserving parents!
Mybrid - Maybe you ought to just beat some of these parents up and take their kids. From reading your blog, I'm sure you'll be a wonderful parent.
PC - Aaaaahhh! Those are scary words. Whenever I hear those words, I think either my music or my guns will be banned. ;)
I know what you're implying though, and I agree with you. I hate seeing kids born into the crap I've seen them born into. Funny thing is, as a tutor, I didn't see too many bad parents. Anyone who's willing to spend money for a tutor for their kids usually gives a damn about their kid's future.
But yes, children deserved to be born into a "wanted" situation, not into a situation where they're a nuisance.
Miranda - You found my thesis statement. ;)
Tenxin - Now if only I could word that better and turn it into a bumper sticker.
Jenn - Roaches and moths for me. Moths don't bug me directly, but when I came home to find they laid their larva in my stone ground whole wheat flour, I got pissed. All moths must die now.
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