Listen & Be Heard Weekly Archives

Not to sound like I?m over 30 or anything, but what?s happening with kids these days? I ask that question every time I see children running amok in a public place while their parents stand by and do nothing. I also wonder when a good friend of mine tells me that her 2 year old has already referred to her as ?bitch.? The word ?already? is qualifying, as there never really is an appropriate time to use that word when addressing a parent. I remember my brother attempting that once only to find himself up against a wall upon my father hearing it. Before anyone calls Social Services, my brother was fully-grown and in college by the time he made that mistake and following my father?s rebuttal, it was an offense he never repeated. To clarify further, I don?t recall ever being so much as spanked by either of my parents. But ah, therein lies the rub. I didn?t have to be. Even though I had my moments of precocious behavior, my parents and I had an understanding, one that we came to agree upon very early. It was a quiet understanding, an unspoken pact. It began with my mother and what I still to this day call, ?the look.? This look could be shot from 100 yards away and I?d catch it. It was piercing and not only put the fear of God in me, but in every child within a half-mile radius. It was a look that said a thousand words, but clearly spelled out on: ?stop!? It rarely had to be succeeded by action, however in a few isolated cases, if any follow-up was warranted, it consisted of a fate worse than spanking, more devastating than the written reiteration of 500 identical sentences and one that never failed to reduce me to tears. It was the staunch, silent disapproval and disappointment of this person I held in such high regard. Her silence was deafening. Contrarily, my father seldom had to do any disciplining as my mother packed a hell of a punch all on her own. The understanding my parents and I shared was one of respect. So, it astounds me when I see kids doing just the opposite with their own parents. And it?s everywhere.

There are numerous talk shows devoted to the subject showing parents of the unruly children; now the ones reduced to tears. When did kids become the bosses and where along the way did parents lose their inherent control over these little creatures five times smaller and fifty times more dependent? I could say that this troublesome shift might be due to the changing roles of parents and the multiplicity of two-income families, but no. Both my parents worked, as did all of my friends? parents and in their households as well, that unwritten, inferred contract between parent and child was also plainly discerned and enforced. Honestly, I have no answers. But, there are few things more disheartening than witnessing children disrespecting the people who brought them into this world and worse, the recipients of such behavior cowing down in fear or at the very least, resolution to the situation. As a child, perhaps I instinctively knew, or it was drilled into me subliminally, that my parents were responsible for my existence. I don?t know. But, I do know that CSNY knew what they were talking about when they wrote the song that could be an anthem to the struggling hearts of parents everywhere, even more so now than when it was penned. Teach your children!

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