JBP's 12 Rules for Life is dangerous advice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtwP6AbbAUc
Rule 1: Stand up straight with your shoulders back
Rule 2: Treat yourself like you would someone you are responsible for helping
Rule 3: Make friends with people who want the best for you
Rule 4: Compare yourself with who you were yesterday, not with who someone else is today
Rule 5: Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them
Rule 6: Set your house in perfect order before you criticise the world
Rule 7: Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)
Rule 8: Tell the truth – or, at least, don’t lie
Rule 9: Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t
Rule 10: Be precise in your speech
Rule 11: Do not bother children when they are skate-boarding
Rule 12: Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/01/jo...
1-4 are "respect yourself".
5 is.... I think legitimate bad advice as worded, but I'm sure as expounded it makes more sense. Maybe its designed as a hook (the "wtf" that drives views).
6-8 are general advice you'd find anywhere
9-11 are how to effectively deal with other people without saying the word "empathy"
12 is kinda spurious
I've never seen someone turn the Golden Rule inward like this. I like it.
> Rule 5: Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them
Other people will do what they do. The only thing you have control over is your own reaction. Most adults understand this.
> Rule 6: Set your house in perfect order before you criticise the world
Nobody's house is in perfect order. Internalizing the tu quoque fallacy of relevance is not good philosophy.
> Rule 8: Tell the truth – or, at least, don’t lie
I'd mention the "Jew in the attic" thought experiment, but there's probably some way to successfully hide the Jew without telling a "lie" if you're clever enough about defining what a "lie" is and what precise statements you make.
> Rule 11: Do not bother children when they are skate-boarding
Unless this conflicts with Rule 5, I suppose.
(I don't have any issue with the statements I didn't respond to.)
It mentions studies (or parables? Who cares?) of people taking better care of their dogs post-surgery than they take of themselves. It rings true, and speaks to anyone who thinks or knows they aren't taking good enough care of themselves.
Has certainly been an enjoyable read so far.
Of course if you are a horrible person you might dislike them for their good behaviours. But if you're a horrible person chances are you'll mess up your kids with or without that rule.
There is a difference between not being able to control your child fully, and not even trying. In my experience, most parents are trying, but I have met one or two who did not care, seemingly believing that whatever their kid does is perfectly okay, because hey, it's just a small child... completely ignoring that fact that other kids around, of the same age, are well behaved.
Now, this strategy of making excuses may work well while the child is small. Like, adults will look at a misbehaving 4 years old and only think "what a horrible child... and what a horrible parent" and walk away. But as your child grows up, the environment becomes less forgiving, and it becomes more difficult for you to instill good habits. If the child's behavior irritates you, as a parent, you can bet that it irritates unrelated people at least twice as much. This creates a spiral, when the environment and your child become hostile to each other.
On the other hand, if you succeed to instill pleasant behavior in your child, it can create a positive spiral, when other people enjoy the presence of your child and by their attention reward the nice behavior, and your child has more pleasant life and more opportunities to further improve social skills.
It’s about setting a boundary where it is most productive, children who are not socialised by the age of four hit problems in later life. Parents and kids who go to war help no one.
I was fortunate enough to grow up with good parents, but there were times where they were misguided and myself disobeying them helped us both in the long run.
Those times you disobeyed were also met with decades of limiting your agency. Not letting you cover yourself in peanut butter or fight with other kids, or mistreat pets, or spend infinite money.
Jp sees resentment and pride as the ultimate source for being a rapscallion or monster, putting responsibility on the parent to keep their child in the ‘liked’ category is a very elegant way to keep a kid from destroying your house but also make a parent confront/channel any resentment or excessive pride into productive directions.
How I caught ring worm
Cats are filthy creatures
Rule 10 is self-contradictory, since it doesn't specify what "precise in your speech" means.
Rule 11 is oddly-specific (why just skateboarding and not any other risky activity?), and reads like it's thrown in there to look "cool" ("how do you do fellow kids?" meme).
Rule 12 is vapid fluff. It's also potentially dangerous, since a unknown stray cat may carry rabies, or be fearful of humans and claw you up bad.