The Modern Parenting Dilemma
Henry H. Lindner
Most parents are stuck in a dilemma. They are living Jesus'
parable about pouring new wine into old bottles. The old bottles represent in
this case the authoritarian type of childrearing--the way they
themselves were raised. It consisted of:
1.
Iron discipline--Obedience was required
and disobedience severely punished, by beatings when necessary. Children were
forced to toilet train early, do work in the fields and around the house, and
go to church.
2.
Support--Mom and Dad were both there to help out.
Mom was always home. There was often an extended family that provided further
security and support.
3.
Control of information--The child had no access
to knowledge that would challenge his parental and societal belief system. He
could not know that life could be different.
The authoritarian system functioned. It produced conformity to
society's rules. It produced fearful people who didn't dare think for
themselves and who wouldn't dream of being selfish or breaking any laws. Our
society's institutions are still structured on this authoritarian system.
Coercive public schooling is the most prominent example of the old system's
institutions.
However, today's parents are somewhat "enlightened".
They lived through the cultural revolution of the 60's. They have more respect
for their child as a person. They don't demand obedience at all times and they
don't have the cruelty required to "break the child's will" and
produce complete obedience. They've been taught that hitting the child is
"child abuse". They want their child to develop his own creativity
and thought. At the same time, they're pursuing their own self-actualization.
Both Mom and Dad are deeply involved in their careers and have little time for
children or housework. So both aspects of the old system have broken down, but
a new system has not taken its place:
1.
Leniency and License has replaced Iron discipline--the parents are both
pressed for time and must force the child to go to day-care and school and do
their homework. Since they won't beat the kids, they resort to offering
incentives (candy and toys), restrictions, or imprisonment
("time-out" and "grounding"). The whole process is
accompanied by much lecturing and rationalizing about why the child must do this
or that--which just confuses the child. The child is forced to comply, not with
God's rules, but only with his parents' and his schools' demands--"for his
own good". On the other hand, either because they're
"enlightened", have a guilty concience, or just lack the time, the parent
fails to demand that the child respect the parents' own rights. They neglect
the natural and essential elements of a child's socialization in the family
while enforcing the unnatural demands of their society.
2.
Neglect has replaced Support--The parents are not
home. Mom is pursuing a career. The child often is raised by daycare workers or
by an overworked, overstressed single parent. There is not sufficient support
to meet the child's needs and win the child's love. The child is angry and
mentally disorganized. The child is not able, and has no incentive to comply
with coercive schooling and the rest of the old system's rules.
3.
Information as replace Ignorance--Through television and
the internet, children know that life can be different. They know how other
children in other families or other cultures live. They know that much of what
they're taught is false. They watch shows like The Simpsons
which expose the hypocracy and evil of schooling and of many
aspects of our society.
So we have what we've got: children who are ill-suited to the
strict authoritarian regime of the school, who've been allowed to think that
they deserve a better life, and who don't have the support they need to
sublimate their animal energy and will in order to conform to a system that
just doesn't make sense anymore. We have a breakdown of "discipline"
in our schools and society. We have a lot of very angry, neglected and coerced
children. We have boys who cannot and will not tolerate the mind-numbing
boredom of school and girls who just tune out. These children are labelled as
mentally-ill (Depression, Attention-deficit Disorder, Conduct Disorder) and are
drugged. Thus psychiatry serves as a convenient way for parents, school, and
government to blame the child and ignore their own deep-seated problems.
We must instead create new bottles for new wine. We must create a
societal system that corresponds to our better ideas about children and
childrearing. First and foremost, we must completely separate the State from
child education and development. Eliminate coercive public schooling and allow
children to become integrated into the real world of the adults. Allow a free
market of learning to develop that can offer every sort of full or part-time
learning experience. This huge change in the system will free children and
parents from the old coercive mental paradigm of childrearing and allow an
entirely different attitude and lifestyle to develop. Eventually, our society
will be based upon love and cooperation, not on cruelty and coercion.