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Comment by larsiusprime | Hacker News Reader

People who do not give values and ideals to their children leave a vacuum for the culture to fill, which largely speaking consists of:

The State: eg "Hey kid, fight this war!"

The Media: eg "Hey kid, hate today's designated weirdos!"

The Corporations: eg "Hey kid, buy this crap!"

The Usurers: eg "Hey kid, enslave yourself in debt!"

None of which have a personal relationship with the child or a vested interest in their well being. You may disagree with another parent's values, but at the very least (on average) that other parent is at least sincere and cares about their own kid.

And the perennial complaint "but what if someone teaches their kids BAD values" will never be solved. Plenty of parents probably think YOU'RE teaching your own kids poisonous lies just as damaging as you perceive them to be doing. That's just life.

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I agree "that's just life". And many parents who think you're doing it wrong believe they're doing it right - by trying to make their parents achieve the dreams they left unfulfilled. That's narcissism. I do not imply that one should leave the child without values but that one should let the child pick up these values in a more natural, guided learning, not in a coerced acceptance of unwritten standards. Let the parents be present to guide them in picking up the right values without forcing anything on them. Let them know the reason why something is more acceptable; don't tell them it's just acceptable and must be followed. Life and human behavior is dynamic so the right way varies with individuals.

You have a hidden assumption that the values and ideals of the parents would be different than the State/Media/Corporations/Usurers/Society etc. That might be a shaky assumption to put your argument on.

I don't have that assumption; plenty of people share the values of their surrounding culture. My point is that parents have a direct and specific interest in caring about their specific kids, but the strong powerful influencers out there (advertisers, media, propagandists, politicians) do not.

Children are more likely to be perceived as an end in themselves to their own parents, and as simply a means to an end by these other entities.

Also: everyone talking about raising their kids with the ideals of critical thinking and of picking their own values: that's still a value that's apparently important enough for you to instill in your child that you went to great lengths to instill it. Something tells me you wouldn't be happy with them embracing an opposing value, like, say, blind adherence to authority figures, and believing everything they read, and letting other people browbeat them and tell them what to do with their lives.

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