I sat recently in a doctor's waiting room, I had a total of about 5 minutes to wait for my appointment that I showed up 15 minutes early for. During that time I watched a mother and her 4 year old daughter sign-in right in front of me and wait also for about the same 5 minutes. During that 5 minutes the 4 year old proceeded to pull every magazine out of the racks (all 3 of them), stand in front of the entry door for several minutes so that other patients exiting had to stand and wait for her to move so that they could exit, mulitple times. Each of these instances was met with a resigned sigh from the mom only after realizing that I was watching, prior to that there was not even the least attempt to stop the magazine tirade or request that the little girl stand anywhere else in the spacious waiting room except in front of the door. Finally the little girl decided that she wanted to go through the waiting room door to the patient rooms and walked up to the door, opened it (looking back to see if mom would say anything), stepped through while holding the door (again looking at mom who finally said 'no-no honey) she then walked in and closed the door with the mother raisng her voice finally to say "you won't get your lollipop for being a good girl if you don't come back here". The daughter never came back knowing that she wouldn't be refused a lolliopop by this lady and the mom, after looking at me like 'what can ya do?' stepped through the door also and spent nearly a whole minute coaxing the little girl back through the door.
I detail this incident because it is a common one that I see every day in America for several years now. While sitting in that waiting room I was able to reflect on when was the last time I heard a modern mother be stern with their child in public. I would have to go back many years maybe longer than a decade, SOMETHING HAPPENED. I look around for other connections to this modern world and find that I am completely out of synchronization with the norms of today. Frankly after reviewing these out-of-sync areas I am not worried about being out of touch with the drifting of the values and actions but saddened for the current norms and the obviously 'doomed to further drift' next generations.
Dr. Benjamin Spock wrote the baby book of the 60' and 70's that was laughed at and guffawed about by the mainstream parents of that time. It espoused negotiating with the child and never saying 'no' and replacing bad behavior with good behavior and never 'embarrassing the child' by spanking in public or applying pressure to perform as related to others. The parents of that time thought, how radical and this is surely going to be his last book. We didn't really count upon the progressive and liberal (mainly non-child bearing) academia to use it as a rallying point to attempt to move the norms in America.
Today you are in the minority if you do not have a 'my child was on the honor roll at everyday elementary' sticker on your car...because every one has one! Today you are demonized if you spank your child for breaking the rules you laid out for the child...because most don't make rules as we see in doctor's waiting room! Today you are demonized if you chastise your child for bad behavior because you are expected to take away the knife he picked up to play with and replace it with a ball....don't scold!
It's no wonder our children don't know what appropriate expectations are in life, they've never been shown any! It's no wonder our young adults don't understand why they cannot have everything they've ever wanted...they've always gotten it before! It's no wonder that so many of today's youth are constantly dis-obeying laws and violating other's rights...they've never been given a set of rules that they had to live by!
You take away the verbal and physical punishments then you take away the ability to grasp 'rules'. Children need rules, they need to know that there is an authority figure that they can respect and aspire to be as they grow up. Take away unique rewards for true excellence replaced them with lowered expectations and what do you have? The dumbing down of America! Was that the real goal of America's educators those many decades ago?
I travel quite frequently around the world and I must say that in every asian country there is still that respect and rules and reward and punishment system that causes people to excel and understand 'just desserts'. In most countries in Europe except the ones that our current liberal and progressives look to for guidance (read France and England) the familial unit is still very strong and still has the needed morals and norms to cause children to aspire to greatness not aspire to mediocrity.
I'm saddened, I'm out of sync, I'm resigned; that the path we are on in America is truly insuring the cratering of the greatest republic the world has seen. It's like sports, if all you do is play mediocre teams all will become mediocre teams. If all you do is seek to not punish, seek to not embarrass, seek to not .........then you will NOT.
I have to say in closing this post, I was ecstatic to hear the one nurse say to the other nurse in the doctor's office that day "I don't think we have anymore lollipops, do we?"
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