Having been born in the 50\u2019s, I tend to look at today\u2019s child raising \u201crules\u201d with a smirk. Most of us had fathers (and mothers) who made sure we towed the line.\u00a0 It was \u201cmy way or the highway\u201d and yes, there was a paddle in the drawer somewhere for when we didn\u2019t behave – but for the most part it only needed to be taken out once or twice.\u00a0 After a paddling or two it\u2019s amazing the Pavlonian response one gets when he\/she sees a paddle (I even flinch at pizza paddles).<\/p>\n
But all of that is out the window these days due to the warm and fuzzy way were are supposed to nurture our children \u2013 creating monsters which now roam among us.\u00a0 I remember a \u201cdiscussion\u201d years ago with one of my children where they said things to me I wouldn\u2019t have dared say to either of my parents \u2013 and lived.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s monster sighting:<\/p>\n
The Scene:<\/strong>\u00a0 A local deli in town, lunchtime Sunday, long line for ordering. The \u201cactors\u201d are directly behind me<\/p>\n The Actors:<\/strong> Mother, son (16ish), daughter (14ish) \u2013 dressed for and on the way to pool, beach or boat<\/p>\n Mom to son:<\/strong> What are you going to have?<\/p>\n Son:<\/strong> This isn\u2019t a real deli. They don\u2019t have anything.<\/p>\n Mom:<\/strong> Well, you need to eat something.<\/p>\n Son:<\/strong> I don\u2019t want anything here this isn\u2019t a real deli.<\/p>\n Mom:<\/strong> Would you just like a container of chicken salad?<\/p>\n Son:<\/strong> Yecch, that doesn\u2019t look good at all!<\/p>\n Daughter:<\/strong> They have deli meat and bread; they can make you a sandwich.<\/p>\n Son:<\/strong> What I really wanted was a McDonald\u2019s burger<\/p>\n My brain shut down at this point (a safety mechanism which occurs when I want to turn around and add my two cents to the situation).<\/p>\n Their Solution:<\/strong>\u00a0 After waiting in line for 20 minutes, nobody orders a sandwich, they buy two packs of cookies and some strawberries\u2026and my guess is they headed to drive-through at Mickey D\u2019s.<\/p>\n My Solution:<\/strong>\u00a0 Were I the father…to son: \u201cThis is where we are eating lunch, if you choose to have something order it, if not, then that\u2019s your<\/strong><\/em> choice because we aren\u2019t headed anywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n Sad part is they probably drove away in the new car the 16 year old got for his birthday!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Having been born in the 50\u2019s, I tend to look at today\u2019s child raising \u201crules\u201d with a smirk. Most of us had fathers (and mothers) who made sure we towed the line.\u00a0 It was \u201cmy way or the highway\u201d and yes, there was a paddle in the drawer somewhere for when we didn\u2019t behave – but for the most part… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[13,8,17,16],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Clfm-k","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23,"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions\/23"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wallyword.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}