Pushover Parents

You have no way of knowing someones personal circumstances. What works for you may not work for another family.

I am not a push over or servant to my kids, however I try not to judge other parents and their parenting method/style. Frankly, it is none of my business.

Whatever, a post like this pops up ever few months. It's always about a mom wanting to feel better about themselves. Feel better?

Good for you.
I think we all have personal limits as far as servitude goes, don't you?

And, yes, typically speaking, if parents are doing their job, kids should be respectful and obedient. And have a sense of right and wrong, responsibility and service.

But you know, this observation almost smacks of those kind of people who may not know what it's like to have a difficult or special needs kid--so be careful!

We never know exactly what it feels like to walk a mile in those "other shoes", do we?

Your post isn't an observation, it is a judgment to affirm your choices and values.

For those who say it's none of your business how others raise their kids, it is everyone's business because these kids grow up to high maintenance, demanding adults that are a menace to society and they become EVERYONE'S problem in the long run. These are the kids who are self entitled, don't respect authority, and believe everyone should cater to their every whim...why???...because they are "special," that's why. That's how their parents raised them. When these children get into real trouble like with the law, these parents blame everyone else for their child's failures--they don't blame the kids or their lack of parenting skills. Parents have lost their "authority" in the U.S. Even our tv shows depict that kids are smarter than their parents. The authoritative patriarchial/matriarchial roles have been undermined. I totally get what you are saying.

Unless the kids are yours, why do you care where they sleep? Seems an odd thing to rant about. Sleeping arrangements are fairly private - I have no idea whether or not the children of my family, friends or acquaintances sleep in their beds at night because it's none of by business.

What are you really angry about?

Your "observation" sounds more like a public service announcement. I am sorry, but I laughed when I read your post. You make everything seem so cut and dried, but it's not that simple at all. But, if it makes you feel better, you can pat yourself on the back.

At this very moment I am exhausted (for reasons you would never comprehend) and really want some peace and quiet, but I am going to go play a card game with my little ones and we are going for a walk. Why? Well, when I am a cranky, know-it-all old bat I hope they show me the same love and kindness. I'll have time for peace and quiet later.

You know, the older I get the less I feel I know about parenting. I have seen so many examples where I thought the parents need to crack down as their young children were out of control yet those same kids have grown up to be such great adults. My own sister/brother in law are great examples. My niece and nephew were so out of control and my sister did very little to control them as children. Both kids are now 16 and 18 and are just the best examples of teenagers around. I hope my own kids are like them. My niece just graduated no.7 in class of 600 and my nephew is an A student. Neither one drinks/does drugs, very respectful, etc. So who's to say what good parenting is? My own parents were never strict disciplinarians--I never had a curfew, etc. Of 5 children, we are all hard working, respectful adults, productive in society.

This is why I don't read parenting books.

We all parent differently with the goal of releasing productive citizen to society. What may work in your (generally speaking) household may not work in mine.

I have to add and say, that it is really unfair to assume that parents who are more lax with their children will end up with kids who will one day become menace to society. It just does not work that way.

I have known kids who may not use "please" or "thank you" and may even throw a swear word or two yet are the most considerate and caring teens. On the opposite of that I also know the ones who pay so much lip service yet are the most self centered kids I know.

I have also known kids raised in the straight and narrow who ended up experimenting and getting hooked on drugs.

I have known kids who were given everything ( Their mom do not read parenting books either). I mean BMW on a 16th birthday, laptop when their 7. Yet all their kids are the most humble and down to earth kids.

I also know a family who had it hard. Dad was an alcoholic, cheated and left. Mom struggled. Really struggled. The dollar menu at Mac Donald's was a treat. She had 2 kids. Both very gifted. One became a doctor.The other one got hooked on drugs.

What I am saying is that when our children are relatively young (like mine are), most of us think that our way is the only way. IMO, a good parent is someone who is not fixed on one set of parenting but is someone who is able to bend a little to accommodate circumstances, that particular child, lay aside judgement and remember that children a miniature humans who may react differently to the same situation.

I hear ya.
I believe when you see a parent that can't control their kid in a public venue that it must be REALLY bad at home.
Parents use excuses like "oh she is tired, or hungry, or threw up last night, or stubbed her toe last week and it's still sore, or she's constipated, etc...." trying to convince themselves there's a reason for their kid being a brat, when it's really all about teaching your child what "No" means.

Kids CRAVE discipline, but a lot of parents don't get that. Thank you for your post, hope the *pushover* parents read this & remember your post when they are giving in to their demanding child/ren

I feel bad for my well behaved disciplined kids meeting one of these disrespectful, entitled brats when they are adults seeking a mate.

Keep up the good work.

M.:

Parents need to give respect in order to get it. Yes. Even children deserve respect. They are humans too.

I expect my children to listen to me and follow my directions as well as model my behavior. There are things that I have done that I wasn't so proud of as a parent. We live and we learn. Yes. I have yelled at my kids. I do not want them yelling at me? No, so I try to talk to them the way I want to be treated. The bottom line is - I am their PARENT NOT their friend. It is my job to prepare them for life...good and bad - and to be SELF SUFFICIENT, law abiding citizens.

I am NOT a servant to my children. I tell them all the time the "M" stands for MOMMY NOT MAID.

My children know the word "NO". I'm NOT afraid to tell them NO. I don't cave and my kids know it.

My children know if they have a bad dream or aren't feeling well - they can come to me - ANYTIME.

Parents that don't know how to say NO to their kids aren't doing them any favors.

Parents who don't parent their children aren't doing them any favors either. One day the big bad world will take them and they won't know how to operate....

I understand what you mean. I love my kids so, so much. They are my world! But I refuse to raise kids that feel like the world owes them. My daughter is 4 and when I ask her a questions, she responds "Yes, Ma'am" or "Yes please" or "No thank you". She knows not to interupt adult conversations and that she needs to say "Excuse me" and "May I be excused?". I am by NO means a mom who wants kids to be seen and not heard. No way. But I do expect my children to be respectful.

I think there are more tough parents out there than pushovers. And they ALL love their kids.

The problem is the 90/10 rule. 10% of the parents who suck at parenting whose kids are causing 90% of the problems. Those problems become highly visible to the rest of us.

I just focus on my own family. Because they are the ones I can impact. And I pray that my well-behaved boys' behavior will rub off on kids who weren't raised right.

I don't know what you're talking about.
Most of the families I know are loving AND disciplined and have raised smart, kind and respectful kids.
Maybe it's just the company you keep.

I don't think your post is judgmental at all, honestly. I don't think anyone can argue that imposing a sense of self-centeredness and entitlement on a child by catering to their every whim is the right way to parent.

I 100% agree with you.

I think that some parents just don't know how to get their kids to do what they want.

Funny, your comments made me think about a show I watched yesterday on Bravo TV, called Pregnant in Heels. These pretty wealthy people with a humongous house and playroom the size of my downstairs have a 6 year old girl, her little brother, and a baby on the way. The 6 year old is very rough with her little brother, rules the roost, and comes in to the parents bed every night, pretty much all night long. They don't handle her well at all. She told the TV people that she does it because she CAN.

The mom is "out-to-here" pregnant and cannot pick her up, and the dad actually said he didn't know how to say NO to his little girl. The lady who runs the pregnancy concierge (the star of the show) stayed there (planning to spend the night) to make the parents continue to take her back to bed. She told them that it could be 50 times. You would have thought she was saying that they had to use a guillotine on her, especially the dad! All I could think was that he will have a hellacious teenager on his hands if he can't get past the idea that he can't tell her no.

The other thing that the woman who stars in the show did was take EVERY toy out of that monster play room and cart them away in a moving van. She told her that she has to learn to be kind to her brother and not bully and kick her mother or she won't get them back. It worked.

Whew!

Dawn

I have to agree strongly with Amy J; it is terribly confusing for some parents. When I became a mother, I had been working with youngsters for over 15 years and I still found of some of the newer books in radical conflict with each other-- and you have each author saying "my way is the best, mine is the foolproof method for raising children who grow into decent adults". Some of them even have great *theory*, but no concrete directions/advice for parents to access, leaving them in greater conflict with themselves because they don't want to shortchange their children*.(I've added an example at the end of this post.)

What I come across, often, is parents who have not dealt with their own fears-- fear that the child won't love them, won't be their friend, fear that discipline will make the child angry with them-just as that mother or father might have been with their own parents, etc. Parents who have not become determined as to what is 'right' in their own minds often find that their children are very good at mastering the situation. Perhaps this is due to conflict with their spouse or their own parents in how they parent, perhaps this is due to a need for support within their community. Of course, there are some parents who really, simply couldn't be bothered, too. But often, that parent whose child is sassing back and interrupting all the time is being ruled by their fear. ("If I put them in time out, aren't I denying their sense of person-hood by not allowing them to talk with us?") Or as before, they are so paralyzed by the poor parenting they received, they simply have nothing to go on because discipline and even a basic authoritarian style can feel very uncomfortable to them.

You are right, we do well to give our children routines, consistent boundaries, structured and predictable discipline, and plenty of love and affection to boot. Rest is a huge factor in how everyone in the family relates to each other, and many families do find differing models to accommodate that which really do work for them.

Maybe you'd care to enlighten us with why you are so fed up?.... I personally think that there needs to be more support for the job of parenting than making a high-school student carry an egg around for a week, which is what they did when I was that age. I think all high school kids need parenting classes for a semester, just as they need personal finance classes or home economics to learn how to take basic care of themselves when out of the family nest-- they need help to learn how to parent, too. There's some weird magical thinking which suggests that babies come out and --voila!-- we now have all the knowledge we need. Birthing is basic biology, not education, and while we might have a bit of instinct into how we tend to our new baby, the more we take the time to learn, the better we do. Education doesn't need to be from a book, it can be from observing mothers we admire and asking questions. It can be through simply having a basic understanding of child development from a biological standpoint, so we know what sort of things are going on for their age. It doesn't have to be about following one parenting guru or another, it's about taking the best bits and leaving the rest. And if we can get away from "style" parenting (strictly following one philosophy) and move toward common sense, the so-much-better we do.

I apologize for the length of this; parenting and child development are my passions and I have spent a lot of time really turning these ideas over in my head over a number of years. Being a mom only proved to me firsthand how hard the job was.

*I'll site Alfie Kohn's "Unconditional Parenting" as an example-- he has great arguments about why his philosophies would work to raise self-regulating kids over the long haul, yet he offers very little guidance for the new parent, who is likely to feel a bit lost, to overtalk with their children, and the parent will be constantly worried by Kohn's assertions that NOT using his methods/thinking will be a long-term disservice to the child. I love Kohn's writings regarding education and incentives, but this book on parenting threw a lot of parents for a loop.

When I am tired, I really wish I can rest as much as I want.
When am having a bad night, I wish DD would sleep in her bed, peacefully through out the night.
When I tell DD to stop wailing or doing some mischief, I wish she'd listen to me the first time itself.

Do we all get what we wish for, as parents? I don't think so. At least, not all the times. I am thankful for whatever I get my way, and I keep trying where things don't totally turn out the way I want them to. Only, I never give up.

If at the end of the day, I feel good about how my tot did, and about how hubby and I managed everything, I tell myself we're not yet failing as good parents. Period.

I concur with that thing you speak of which is enabling!

I am currently trying to break bad enabling habits that will hinder our girls that I did not see as a big deal until the hubby brought it to my attention for example I would clean thier room (3 years ago) because in my mind I want it clean like I want it cleaned, well what stop me from teaching them how to clean thier own room?!!! being an enabler!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love your post mama, I concur!!!!!

I"m with JB here -- is there more to the story of why you're posting? Did something spark this particular observation?

We don't always know what the situation is between a child and parent at the moment we think we are witnessing something that's bad parenting. That child truly may have thrown up earlier and be acting in ways that are not typical for him or her. Unless we know the parent and kid well, we can't judge. An example: I see kids in strollers who appear to be far too old for them and my instinct is to think, "What lazy kids and what lazy parents, to let this kid who looks five or six ride in a stroller," but I try to quash that and remember that for all I know, this child could have a physical or mental disability I can't see, and mom might not be able to get out of the house at all if she doesn't put this child in a stroller. Sure, we all see stuff that just appears wrong, but if it's not harming a child in that moment -- we can reserve judgement and move on. When it's a case of a family we do know personally and with whom we do interact, then yes, it's a clearer call to say that a parent is missing the mark.

What bothers me much more than where a kid sleeps -- which won't affect whether the kid gets into college, or whether I get any sleep myself -- is when parents treat children as full equals, like miniature adults, from an early age, with no real discipline for rudeness. My sister- and brother-in-law did that with their daughter, and she now is 12 and treats them very disrespectfully (and treats other adults with the same disrespect). But I can say this because we observe it personally every time we see them.

Wow.. sounds a little harsh to me... but there really is not enough detail for me to say anything substantial about how you raise your kids.

I do agree that parents should not be servants for the kids, and it seems that the parents who do that then have problems when their kids get kicked out of group activities due to thier behavior. THey say my child did that?? Well gee, of course you have no problems with your child at home, you give them everything they ask for, so when they are old No they have a temper tantrum becuase that is what they know. My daughter has a little boy who hits all the time in one of her classes and the only thing the Mom did was make excuses... no discipline. Her older son just flat out does not listen... and he is only 5

There are so many books out there since the 80's touting "child centered" parenting written by "experts" it's hard to blame parents who have no real life parenting experience for buying into it. Even the parenting magazines (you know, with all the fashionable parents "not" disciplining their kids in them?) in doctor's offices push that mentality, and to me Dr. Sears is today's Dr Spock (although I love his vaccine book). I've even seen those style blogs in this site-how not to discipline your kid rather than discipline them. It all stems from eras where parents were abusive and it sent the pendulum flying in the opposite extreme. Someone put the child development psychologists in charge of parenting advice-I don't know who. Anyone who has seen the results to "pushover parenting" vs "parenting that incorporates EFFECTIVE discipline" (when necessary-which isn't often when it's effective) knows the spoiled kids are not nicer or happier, but not everyone has that life experience to draw from. Often victims of bad parenting are the ones out looking for books to guide them, and then they get this bill of goods that "being nice is all they have to do and their kids will take the cue and become great people".

Brilliant! Who knew all this discipline globally since the beginning of mankind has been totally unnecessary? Why didn't everyone always just put their kids in time outs and "time ins" when time outs were too mean.... We sure have a lots more wisdom in the modern world...look how much nicer kids are now! Sigh.

We took the politically incorrect approach, and now we have super nice kids who hang around kids who treat their parents like dirt. I don't know how many times I've had to answer the question "Why did he/she talk to his mom like that?" with, "Well everyone has different rules, dear.."

I do agree with the premise that sometimes bratty out of control kids with little parental discipline can grow into nice adults..I have one cousin who turned out that way (his brother is on drugs though) but they almost had their nice parents checking into the loony bin for most of their childhood.

My only real guiding principle with my sons (18 & 15) is to love them. Sometimes love is soft and comforting, and sometimes it is more disciplined. It really depends on the child and the situation.

I agree with another mom here . . . the older I get the less I feel like I know LOL. I see other parents do it differently than me and their kids still turn out fine.

Just love them - that's my philosophy. And love is not necessarily easy.

Thank you!

Our 19 old son got a speeding ticket last week. Great! I told him I hoped he had the $163 because we don't pay for speeding tickets. He was like "what"??? I said "you heard me". Then I told him he would probably have to take defensive driving. Well, you would have thought I was cutting his arm. He said "I don't have time to do that". I said "really, I'm sure it will cut into your XBox, beer drinking, girl chasing days". I then said "I don't remember asking your opinion on this." Then he said "well, I don't want to" I said, "again, I don't recalling asking your thoughts". If I tell you to take it, you will. I will not pay for the increase on insurance. If my insurance goes up, YOU pay the difference." He's answer was "yes madame".

I'm not the perfect mother. They always said "No" was my favorite word. They appreciated what we did and knew we loved them wildly and that we would be their biggest cheerleaders and advocates. But they also knew that when I said NO I meant NO.

I agree with pretty much what you have said, M.. While, I believe I am far from a " pushover" parent, I struggle with my parenting style. The families that we know, I'm definitely in the minority. I really pay attention to how they parent ( children with few rules, that run the house, interrupt a lot , throw tantrums constantly, with no consequence, throw things & hit their parents) and wonder if I'm missing something. I guess my point is , I'm not sure my way is best . Sometimes , I wonder if those children of the " pushover " parents will end up better in some respects. I think most of us parents are just trying to do the best for our kids & I'm not 100% sure what that is.

I look at it this way...they are small for so long. If they are hungry, I feed them. If they need to be taken to their sports events, boy scouts, cub scouts etc...I take them. When they are ready for college, I know I did my job. Being a mother can be hard, but I am willing to do the sacrifices. My kids will remember me being a caring mom and willing to enjoy going canoeing or camping with them. There are a few moments I can remember with my parents, that's it. My kids will have 18 years of memories with my husband and I.

And a good one at that!

@Kay - yay for you! hopefully that gf will get away from that guy as he has shown his true colors! best to cut her losses now!
(so reminds me of a scene in a restaurant once - guy being a jerk...)

I could not agree more! I'm a stay at home mom and do plenty for them all day but I do expect them to obey me and give me respect. I'm tired of seeing this horribly rude children that turn into even ruder (don't think that's a word ... Lol) and disrespectful teenagers. Ugh!