Parenting Through Humiliation

Over the past few years, I have noticed a trend of parents applauding other parents who have humiliated their own children, on video, in order to get their kids to change behavior. Supportive observers seem to regard this as "taking control." I regard it as an ego-centric attempt to cover up the fact that those parents failed to be in control in the first place.

There's the video of the cowboy-hatted philosopher who repeatedly shoots his daughter's laptop with a 9mm handgun after he reads a letter to the world about how bad of a kid she is. I think that one started it all. (I won't link to such psychological child abuse.) There's the dad who moved his daughter's room into the driveway because she doesn't clean up. Since then, I have seen numerous videos meant to humiliate kids into behaving better. They tend to "go viral." And people tend to support it.

Many praise these parents for "being tough" with their kids. I find that disturbing beyond description. Sickening.

I find "being tough" with one's kids to be essential. I think my own children would attest to the fact that dad is no pushover when it comes to action and consequence...which is probably why I don't wind up desperate enough to go to social media for my parental mojo. I actually work, incrementally and consistently, on instructing my kids in proper behavior and by imposing consequence when they don't do what I ask. Sadly, sometimes they are not pleased with me when this happens, but...they get over it.

The Road Not Taken: A Lesson's Lesson

I just finished a lesson on Frost's "The Road Not Taken." I began with a clip from the movie Dead Poet's Society in which Robin Williams's character gives an erroneously one-sided reference to the poem; the one that sees the speaker's choice as one that resulted in something positive. The poem is ambiguous and to see it otherwise is to turn it into an impotent motivational poster.

Why? Because Frost wasn't stupid enough to think being different is a guarantee to happiness. We all know, from life experience, that being different can result in immense success or in doom. It all depends how the cookie crumbles.

It's like Bradbury (and I love the man deeply) saying "jump off of the cliff and build your wings on the way down." Yeah, that's great, Ray -- it's good advice because it worked for you. What about the guy who doesn't finish the wings in time because he didn't have you talent or luck?

Yeah. SPLAT!

My dad was a lifelong musician who supported a family as a player and arranger and never achieved fame. His advice was less poetic.

The problem is, reasonable advice is not as sexy as spinning around trailing ribbons and singing "follow your heart." The hard part is that when one is really, truly different, one will have reached a place in which it is not externally apparent. One has to let go of ego in order to reap the benefits of true originality. Once you brag about your difference or try to advertise it, you are just like everyone else.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and I thought it over and took the one that made sense to my heart and my mind and that didn't lead to a flaming death or a slow descent into madness and starvation...

...and that had made all the difference.

A Time Warp; A Concept Stretch

Case 1: A man is cautioning another man about the next step he is thinking of taking in a battle. The advisee tells the advisor to "stop being a woman."

Case 2: A mother sees her daughter before a date. The daughter's skirt is "too short." The mother tells the daughter to change, because "it is better to present a little mystery."

Case 3: Three teenaged boys are standing on a corner in the city, cursing and making racy comments about girls. A woman is seen approaching and when she gets to the corner, the boys take off their hats and say "Good evening." When she is gone, they go back to being crude. 

Case 4: A twenty-something is working at a burger joint. He is fast and he is courteous, hoping that the boss will see his hard work and give him a raise one day. He wants to do his best, because some day he wants to have his own accounting firm and he believes hard work is the answer to realizing dreams.

The First Day of School

Every one of these kids walking in these doors today is someone’s son or daughter; each one of them is a person, with un-testable strengths. If teachers and administrators around the world insist on remembering that, everything will change for the better. But, as long as these kids are regarded as outcomes, we will continue marching on the path toward mediocrity and anonymity. 

That's really all there is to it. 

Italian kids crossing a rope bridge to their school;
Modena Italy, 1959. Source: History in Pictures. 

Until the Last Summer...

I am a big advocate of the idea that we can reason through our emotions. This is not meant to be a dismissal of the idea that some emotions creep up under the security systems of logic. Sometimes we just feel things; sometimes those things have no discernible origin. We wake up in a bad mood. We just go from feeling just okay to feeling melancholy.

Still, I would argue that these things don't happen for "no reason;" they simply happen for reasons that are not apparent to us, consciously. If we thought hard, we might be able to trace the reasons. But, sometimes, we are simply unable or unequipped to do so. Sometimes we seem to feel things for "no reason."

What's left is to reason our way through whatever we feel.

Here I sit, the week before starting another school year (I am a teacher and an academics vice principal) and I have "that feeling" -- the same one I have had the few days before school since I was a kid. It's the emotional equivalent of indigestion; there is a lingering melancholic ball at the pit of my soul. It's not quite sadness; it is more like a haunting of memory that just won't take full shape; more like the presence of groundless guilt -- a smudge on the window looking out to a bright day. Maybe it is a mood best illustrated by this Monet painting:

Monet: "Wheatstack (Sun in the Mist)"

I spend all summer in school, making schedules and planning for the upcoming year. I am there, already -- but that little kid feeling comes back anyway, unbidden and illogically real, like a curtain of gauze.

So what does logic tell me to do? Just get up and do it. It's not a big hurdle; it's not a serious problem. But is might be a tiny example of those emotions we feel but can't pinpoint. So, I teach my sons, when they express the feeling: "I don't want to go back to school, Dad. I don't want summer to end."