Any explanations or excuses here for the bad parenting of late?

Question

Those of us without children are often told that our opinions are groundless...as we could never understand the real plight. However, I believe we have objectivity on our side...and that validates our views considerably.

My view is that parents of the youth today really stink at their role (generalization, of course). Parents who teened and twentied in the 80s/90s have been willing victims of the 'therapy' culture...labelling bad behavior and attitudes with terms of acceptable dysfunction. And now, they are passing that crap on to their kids.

The generation I see today is disrespectful, lazy, rude and display a ridiculous sense of entitlement. And the parents seem to stand by and allow it. They seem to want to be their kids' friends, rather than parents! They indulge their every whim, and ensure that they are clad in the most recent and trendy fashion fads. Punishments are shortlived, and the threats of such hold no sincerity.

How did parenting get this messed up?

I realize that each generation will look at the one behind them and say, "Kids these days..." But, overwhelmingly, I see a lack of respect that truly didn't exist in my youth. Kids have a marked disrespect for their parents...swearing at them and calling them names. This just was NOT tolerated in my youth...and the cases of it were few and far between.

And to blame all of the problems on the economic status of the parents is just ignoring the problem. Poverty and economic problems have existed for generations....it is no excuse for bad behaviour...

I am NOT in favour of parenting with an iron fist. I don't think that physical punishment is necessary if you raise your children to have respect for their parents and others. That seems to be sadly lacking these days. I would never have dreamed - nor would any of my contemporaries - of swearing or yelling at my parents or calling them names. It was absolutely unheard of. Because we had respect for our elders...we knew it would not be tolerated. Our parents were our parents...period. They weren't trying to be our friends or our peers. They were there to guide us, care for us and keep us on the right path.

Answer 1

I quite agree with you about the trend in parenting nowadays, but as you say these are just generalizations and there are surely exceptions to this sweeping statement.
First, many of the parenting attitude nowadays is based on the wrong premise that "this is america and this is how children act nowadays" ---which is totally wrong. They are acting this way because we are teaching them to. Discipline is very vital here. Authority should be established. A family is lke a government. Without authority, it will be chaos and lawlessness. Disrespect, vagrancy and deliquency will continue to flourish.
Rules and Sanctions should be clearly spelled out, and every misdeamenor or trespasses should be dealt with according to what is agreed or else it will loss its teeth and it would never be followed.
Second, many parents attitude towards their children are just like their attitudes towards their pets. For them, it is enough to give them food, occasional care and they can just leave them behind to somebody to care if they have something else to do. Come on, children should be cared and loved not just fed. This lost the meaning of family.
Third, children now are often viewed as a burden rather than a blessing. A burden indeed,they have become to many of us. They are accidents. These makes the children unloved and longed for attention---which they could get by being something notorious to the family or worst to the society --- to get attention if not to get even.
Lastly, to those parents who are doing good. Lets not loss hope. Dont listen to what others will say to us. Lets continue disciplining and training our children to the right path. It is better of us to be behind bars for child abuse, than our children behind the bars because of our poor parenting.

Answer 2

I agree with what you are saying to a certain extent but i have to add that 50 or 60 years ago, we did not have such a wide media influence as we do now. Certain things were unheard off back then but i don't think it was because the problem did'nt exist, its because it was well hidden.
Our government and our freedom we have today makes it very difficult for children to be well disciplined, by this i don't mean we should be beating our children, but for instance, schools do not have any insentive and allowance to discipline our children, and single parents dont get the neccessary help and support they deserve.
I have to agree with the fact that more and more teenagers are having children and are far to immature to understand what you and i are discussing,and as long as they feed their children, then thats good enough, i am the first one to say that parents like these should not be allowed to have children, Unfortuanatly, they havnt had the common sense to know any better because their parents did not instill it in them.
The root of the problem is now dealing with the cause of it, so the world we live in today will only allow us to do so much, dealing with issues in contraception and educating children more at school with these issues is a continuous step in the right direction, if we can change this generations thoughts then we can only hope it will be instilled on the next.
In an ideal world, every child would and should have the same as the next but as long as the government continue to catorgarize each child by their social status then that will never happen.
The root causes can go on and on. I blame both the government, and the parents.

(i happen to have 3 young children so i know how hard it is bringing up children, the more inadequate parents need more intervention.)

Answer 3

Yes true all generations will say this. This doesn't mean that every child is being raised poorly, or that they are what you are accusing them to be. We never had it as bad as our parents or grandparents. Things are improving all the time, and I do not share your opinion. It's just people that are sometimes the problem. Some people still believe that strict punishment will solve everything, well in all honesty maybe that has it's own cause and effect as well.
No one person gets instructions with raising children and many parents make mistakes. Would you rather have today's parents beat their children, or instill more harsh punishments to fit your needs or anyone elses. Everyone is different and who is any one of us to judge how someone else chooses to raise their own child, no matter how wrong it may be.
I'm just wondering now if you have children and how you would handle the situation. I would definitely love to see that and how well mannered and proper your children are. If you rule with an IRON FIST, and point out other for all of their mistakes in public.
This question is your vented opinion on how others should raise their children and how dissatisfied you are with the way they do this. WOW, who are you to judge?
Do you really think this opinion will become the savior to all of us failures as parents. Get a Life!

Answer 4

I am a parent and have the same scared view of other parents. I think with so many families (myself included) having either a one-parent household or two-parent household where both parents work, parents are feeling guilty about not being able to spend enough time with their kids. Therefore, they give them anything they want. They don't see that this is not helping, but hurting the child, who will never learn to work for something, or how to deal with disappointment. The worst are the parents with the "my child can do no wrong" attitude. Children make mistakes, it is the job of a parent to teach our children why these mistakes are wrong, not defend them at all costs. All that teaches them is that no matter what the do there will be no consequences.

Answer 5

EDIT: "Poverty and economic problems have existed for generations....it is no excuse for bad behaviour...."

-I couldn't disagree more passionately with this assertion. This is a very common thing for privileged, conservative, or just plain ignorant people to think. While not all poor people behave badly, poverty is inextricably a mutually influencing counterpoint of uneducation and bad decisions, ESPECIALLY on the part of the parents and SUBSEQUENTLY on the part of their children. Children of course become parents eventually (and often at too early an age) and that's how economic difficulty and behavioral and mental disorders are intergenerational.

I'm a child and adolescent therapist, and I can tell you that after working with a lot of poor children with severe mental and behavioral struggles... their economic situation fed directly into their inability to learn how to behave appropriately or make wise decisions. They lack money, family role models, appropriate peer relationships, you name it. You're simply wrong on this part.

People who don't experience social, political, economic, institutional or familial oppression don't often notice that bad parenting is handed down generationally more consistently than hair and eye color. Also, many people 10, 20 and 50 years ago would have agreed with the statement that parenting "of late" is bad.

There are many societal influences and and family circumstances that affect parents' abilities to raise upstanding children. The argument that it's getting worse is probably a good one, given that a greater number of people are struggling to survive on working class and lower class wages... or worse, they're living in poverty or are unemployed.

To look at things like punishments, disrespect, laziness and sense of entitelment is to settle for mere surface-level explanations for kids' problems these days. You're not wrong, but there are deeper forces at work. The problems are definitely systemic.

I agree that we have problems, but I think you're look at it too simpistically.

Answer 6

lots of destructive people seem to have young toddlers to make money. i'm no longer stereotyping, yet people improve young toddlers in destructive, deprived properties and assume those young toddlers to make a living. extra usually they drop out of faculty and only rob people to make money. in step with threat i'm biased because of the fact I certainly have considered this till now, and lots of destructive people are not above defrauding and mooching off people they understand for survival. So, i think of this is incorrect and worse nevertheless, it backfires. The cycle may even repeat if youthful lady toddlers are uneducated and get pregnant, which I certainly have additionally considered.

Answer 7

it's called laziness