View Single Post
Old 06-11-2008, 09:56 AM   #25
CaptainCrunch
Norm!
 
CaptainCrunch's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2002
Exp:
Default

When I was growing up, my parents were actually harder on me then my 3 older sisters. If I did something wrong, I got warned about dire consequences, and when I hit a certain age, I knew exactly what those consequences were. My dad thought nothing of spanking us when we were younger, and then when we hit a certain age spankings turned into groundings, and they were real groundings, none of this time out crap that they use nowdays. It was two or three weeks, no T.V., no phone, no computers (yes we had those in our day), no going outside and playing. You were out of school at 3:15, home by 3:30, and you had your nose in your homework at 3:45 with lights out at 9:00. On weekends it was back breaking yard work. Eventually, if my dad looked at me funny, I knew I was about to cross the line.

I didn't figure it out until I was 20, and having a beer with my dad on the deck, and I was laughing about the cheap labour that he got during 1 grounding. He put down the beer and gave me the look, then he said something that really stuck with me.

"When your growing up, I am the dad, the ultimate authority in your life, but its not all thrills and power, that makes a bad father. My job was not to be your friend, or your confidant, my job was to give you morals, teach you to think, make right decisions and give you a work ethic. If I had to punish you to make you a better person, you might have hated me at the time, but I bet you love me for it now.

We made sure you had good food, clothes, and solid family, the best education that you could get, and a leg up in a world that doesn't care about you.

When you turned 19, and you left home, we could be friends, confidance, share stories and whatever, but I noticed that you bought the beer today and you didn't need to ask me for money to do it, that means I've done my job".

I've seen too many parents that want to be their kids best buddy in the whole wide world, they want to be the cool parent, they don't want to face the hard realities of life that their kids are going to face so they coddle them, give into them, spoil them, and don't set them up for later. I've seen parents that are actually handicapping their kid with kindness and then they're astonished when the kid fails. I get so angry when I see some spoiled brat running roughshod over a restaurant or a store and their mother or father says "Please don't do that buddy". Please? In my day, you'd hear "Don't even think of doing that" before I had done it, and if I challenged it, the next words I heard were "Thats it, we're going home"
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
CaptainCrunch is offline   Reply With Quote