We’ve all heard the saying, “With age comes wisdom.” It’s an
adage that’s been passed down for generations. It’s had quite the staying power
and probably always will. And why not? It sounds good. Seems hard to argue with.
But at the time you heard it, you should have immediately become suspicious because you most certainly heard it from someone older than you. Parents are particularly prone to believing we have not only knowledge, but values that we must share with our offspring.
Parents of every generation think there are certain “absolutes” they must instill in children in order for the children to turn out as well-rounded as the adults instilling the absolutes. Not only do we believe that certain absolutes must be passed along, we are absolutely certain of their importance.
The kind of absolutes vary from parent to parent, but all parents have at least some. Patience is a virtue, competition teaches the value of trying hard and how to accept failure, we all must learn to compromise, etc…
But at the time you heard it, you should have immediately become suspicious because you most certainly heard it from someone older than you. Parents are particularly prone to believing we have not only knowledge, but values that we must share with our offspring.
Parents of every generation think there are certain “absolutes” they must instill in children in order for the children to turn out as well-rounded as the adults instilling the absolutes. Not only do we believe that certain absolutes must be passed along, we are absolutely certain of their importance.
The kind of absolutes vary from parent to parent, but all parents have at least some. Patience is a virtue, competition teaches the value of trying hard and how to accept failure, we all must learn to compromise, etc…
All bullshit.
We tell ourselves that sharing these nuggets of wisdom is an important duty as parents, but really it just makes us feel important. Necessary, even. That doing this equates to good parenting. The reality is we just want our kids to suffer the same way we did as kids, which is really more questionable parenting than good parenting.
For instance, when it’s time to eat dinner, my kids want to pause the show they’re watching and pick it back up at the same spot after dinner’s over. Because kids can do that now. I, however, tell them they can’t pause it, that they need to just turn TV off. I usually follow that up with, “Missing a show while eating dinner with your family won’t kill you.”
Well, a lot of things won’t kill them. Pausing the show and starting it where they left off after they’re finished eating won’t kill them either. Or me. So why do I care? For a very good reason, actually. Because if kids never have to miss a TV show due to meals or homework or bedtime, they’ll never learn how to compromise.
Riiiiiiiight.
I’m pretty sure I care because I didn’t get to pause live TV when I was a kid. If a show I liked came on during dinner, I had to miss it. And damnit, missing that show made me the man I am today. The type of man who tells his children they don’t get to enjoy advancements in technology.
What if parents did this in the early 1900s, like bypass a trip to the dentist or turn down the cure for something in order to instill some misguided principle?
“Oh, we’re all just going to skirt death now? What kind of message does it send to say, ‘Take care of yourself and you can live longer?’ People are going to completely dismiss the fact that they’re going to die. Not only will everyone live well into their 40s, they’ll enjoy it!”
We want our kids to grow up the way we grew up, and we think what was good enough for us should be good enough for them. People tell themselves, “That’s how I was raised and I turned out fine.” Problem is, EVERYONE thinks they turned out fine.
People who honk their car horns in stop-and-go traffic think they turned out fine. Degenerate gamblers who can’t keep a job or a relationship or a clean rap sheet think they turned out fine. Fans who get thrown out of sports arenas filled with thousands of other people who are drinking and swearing and making threats against the players think they turned out fine. People who repeatedly tell their story about the time they were abducted by aliens think they turned out fine. They think they turned out fine despite the abduction! If you asked them, they’d do it all over again. “Alien abductions build character.”
Guys who take dick pics think they really turned out fine. Usually they feel quite confident in their exceptionalism.
Charles Manson thinks he turned out fine. And apparently he got a woman to believe the same thing.
People who videotape themselves holding a rocket launcher in one hand and a burning picture of a world leader in the other think they turned out fine. EVERYBODY thinks they turned out fine! Somebody’s got to be wrong.
Kids would probably be better off if most parents raised them in a completely opposite manner from which they were raised (I’m looking at you, Philadelphia Eagles fans). Do you ever look back at your childhood and think, “I wish my dad forced me to play baseball with a potato instead of a ball like he had to do when he was a kid. My life would be so much better today” ?
Parents mean well. We try to do right by our kids and it helps to think that we are. But come on. Remember the advice about dealing with a bully? “The best way to get a bully to leave you alone is to stand up to him.” Well what percentage of the population of Silicon Valley do you think is made up of bully pummelers?
I don’t advocate not teaching kids. We have to teach them. They are so, so dumb. But raising children has a way of making you feel like you don’t know anything either. Because you don’t. So let your kids teach you too. And let go of some of those principles that you try to instill out of stubbornness more than anything else.
"You should always tell the truth." Ok, Mother Theresa.
