Why French Parents Are Superior
online.wsj.com
online.wsj.com
We were raised in the U.S. in the 50s and 60s much like the French children in the article. We weren't treated like children, but like small adults. There were no children's menus in restaurants. If we wanted to go to out to eat, we dressed and acted properly and ate real food with our parents. If we wanted to go to little league, piano lessons, or anywhere else, we got off our butts and found a way to get there while Dad was at work and Mom was watching younger siblings. We walked to school from age 5. If we were late for dinner, we didn't eat. If we were late getting home at night, we didn't get to go out again. If we wanted money we got a job, not an allowance. If we misbehaved...I don't know what would happen. We didn't misbehave; we just knew better.
Most of our cousins and friends were the same, with a few exceptions. That was just the way it was.
Then somebody somewhere fucked it all up and now schools are surrounded by parents in minivans picking up special people who never really grow up. No wonder.
The French aren't different, just late. Just give them a few more years and they'll fuck it all up, too.
Children here aren't considered small adults, and there's no way (for most at least) they walk to school when aged 5 etc.
I don't think (honestly) that Europe or France is just applying the same recipes years after the US; things are really different for some parts, not happening later IMO.
Of course if you always spoil kids and never gives them limits and make them believe the world is 100% safe when somebody is watching over them and so unsafe otherwise that they have formal interdiction to explore on their own, they will get agitated and misbehave and drive you crazy. Not really news to most French people I think...
They are various other factors also, depending on the precise context. For example, in Paris and Petite Couronne most people lives in tiny flats (by American standard and even by French standard in other regions) and you can't afford to let your child make a mess for too long in the living room (or even in their own room) because that would occupy the whole area. So making them tidy up more often mechanically increase discipline. I think that that kind of thing can become cultural and applied even by people who have more space. The way an important proportion of people live in a country impact the way the whole typically behave (and even more true because there is less multiculturalism isolated from each other than in the USA)
Just saying - I don't mean to advise beating kids (I would never do it, and it is also illegal where I live), but to point out that below the surface, not everything is necessarily what it seems to be. These articles advising strictness towards kids pop up with steady frequency... They might benefit the parents more than the kids.
Funny how it is portrait as being advantageous for the kid to leave them crying in the night, so "they can learn to fall asleep again". Or maybe they just got some emotional scars, but hey, they can sleep.
I took the opposite approach with my kid (16 months) - we always rushed to his bed side when he was crying. He did not sleep through the night from day one, but in general, he is very pleasant company. We wanted to give him confidence and I think so far it has worked. He doesn't need to terrorize us because he knows in general we treat him fairly.
What do you mean here? Your kid is not a neighbor you would have to treat fairly our not, he or she is your own blood, you love your kid, you don't treat them. That's a part of American education problem, kids are like clients, with rights and all.
Of course he is only 16 months now, so I can not really make that many claims about the effectiveness of our parenting... Also kids just may be different, but I didn't see the french woman take that many samples, either (did she check the French suburbs, I hear there is a lot of troubled youth around).
Also, of course kids have rights.
However, I also had a feeling that since the baby is totally dependent on me (he could not even turn on his belly in the first weeks), it was asked too much for him to entertain himself. Why do I get to decide what is enough for him (well fed and diapers cleaned has to be sufficient)? He could not even change his view without my help. This is just a very personal thing, though, everybody will feel different.
On a related note, I just read a book about sleep research and one experiment they did was exposing people to extreme boredom. That is they were made to lie in a bed for days and not even allowed to read or anything - so their situation is quite similar to those helpless babies. Turns out they would settle into a 4h sleep pattern, similar to babies.
Over there you appreciate the level of sacrifice your parents made to make your existence possible, everything they give you is a gift. Over here it almost seems like the child automatically deserves the world from their parents for the great injustice of having been born.
Now I'm not saying parents west and east are different in wanting to give their child the very best they can. It's the attitude of entitlement towards what is given that differs and I still struggle to grasp the western perspective.
Apologies up front since I don't think I was able to capture my thoughts on this topic with a great deal of eloquence here.
I dont understand why positions of power are seen so different just because the weaker party is ones offspring.
Also, I believe that your approach is the more convenient to the parent, because you don't have to deal with guilt about possibly leaving emotional scars to their kid. But in fact you're just spoiling it and do bad for its health. Sleeping the whole night, at least for 6 continues hours, is very important for kids from half to 2 yo for their proper/healthy development.
The night cry mentioned in the article is just a specific example, it doesn't make much sense to come to a conclusion based only on how you delt with this particular case.
Of course I am aware that he will eventually have to deal with tough things alone. However, it is not obvious that he should have to do so as a helpless baby.
Honestly, I am a bit shocked that you can be so convinced of a potentially evil theory. I would be very interested in your sources.
The theory to "experience a lot of tough things to become tougher" also sounds rather backwards to me. How far should we go? Should we give him a short lived pet so that he can learn to deal with death? Should we beat him, so that he is prepared for school yard bullies?
Suppose you try climbing a tree for the first time. Is it really easier if daddy is not standing there prepared to catch you if you fall? Would it make you more inclined to try climbing the tree if daddy wasn't there?
They've also advised us that night sleep must be complete, as I mentioned in my previous post. That we should not encourage him to wake up by letting him getting up or giving him food, and it worked. When he has 6 months old, we switched the night milk with water or tee and after a few nights he stopped waking up in the middle of the night. Since then, me and my wife can get some sleep at nights and some rest instead of being wrecked every day.
As far as where is the limit, how far to go? You don't have to go anywhere, you just have to use some common sense, if it has a real problem rush to help it, when it doesn't have a real problem don't encourage it. Yes, be there the first time it will try to climb the tree, but not every time it gets into its mind that it wants to climb a tree. Of course you don't have to start beating it. Duh! I'm a little shocked myself that you find it normal to wake up every night for 16 months.
How else do I know that I'm right? I see other people's kids. When parents rush to serve every vice their kids have just to avoid the crying, the end is that their kids cry all the time and they are never satisfied with anything. Parents that set limits and don't continuously run behind their children, not only have some time left to enjoy their life, but their kids are more polite, they are easier satisfied and happy, and they also make friends easier, since they are not obnoxious.
You say your kid is fine anyway, don't know you-can't confirm it, maybe it's an exception to the general rule, which is if you let crying to be a bargaining card, the kid will cry all the time. Maybe in your country there is no sane parent left for you to see the difference, maybe you should plan some vacation time in France.
Recently of course sometimes he protests when he doesn't like something. I don't want to suppress that completely, though - I think it is good that he protests and fights for what he wants. If it is a good reason he can not get it, he won't get it, at other times, why deny it just for the sake of denying it (he doesn't get sweets, it is more about playing with certain things).
Dad had FAR more buyIng power on his $4-6000 per year salary than we do today.
He didn't have to commute as far and the price of gas and food was far lower than today.
Further, people simply went out and ate out far less and just lived on less.
This is about the evil of marketing to convince generations to consume.
This is about greed.
...people simply went out and ate out far less and just lived on less.
These two statements contradict each other.
The first assumes that a large amount of spending is done in order to signal or gain social advantage. Signaling would be ostentatious consumption to express a higher social status. Gaining would be, say, buying a house in a good school district in order to gain social advantage for your children. A perverse logic of a constrained-resource economy may be that such socially-driven spending may increase, not decrease.
The second assumes that one didn't need to go out to eat, because one spousal partner (OK, the wife) stayed home and incorporated the roles of cooking, cleaning, childcare, etc., which are now frequently treated as external expenses. Likewise shorter commutes with cheaper gasoline.
There is no contradiction.
On a "keeping up with the joneses" basis, we are exactly as rich now as we always were. In 1950, 1960, and today, there were 50% of people above the median. If your dad had more "keeping up with the joneses" buying power, it's only because someone else's dad had less.
Incidentally, when you compare people to their parents, you find that income went up vastly more than you think. It's only when you compare people today (Americans and immigrants) to the parents of Americans that incomes appear to have stagnated.
http://crazybear.posterous.com/did-immigrants-and-simpsons-p...
It's not the median, but the marginal cost to advance to the next level.
In 1947, to go from the top of the first quintile by income to bottom of the top 5%, required increasing your income 501%. In 2001, the differential was 685%. Wealth disparities tend to exceed income (your marginal savings and/or investment growth increases with marginal income).
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/DistributionofIncome.html
A similar relationship is shown in this plot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Income_Inequality_1967-...
Another relationship is to consider ranking determined by mean (not median) income. If half the wealth and spending power is in the top 5% rather than top 20% of households, then the relative wealth of the lower 95% has decreased -- they're not keeping up with the Jonses.
Again, the marginal cost to advance to the "next level" can only increase if more people are able to achieve it. "Keeping up with the joneses" is a zero sum game.
Also, if we are talking about "keeping up with the joneses", then it's irrelevant to focus on income or wealth. We should focus on consumption - interestingly, consumption inequalities are lower than both income and wealth inequalities.
Obesity was also the exception then rather than the norm. Coincidence?
Mothers working? Why that would be child abuse. A mother should stay in the home and look after her children. Also, we can't have them taking jobs away from men!
However that was legally and socially enforced, so it wasn't so good IMO.
This somebody was the Baby Boomers, which sounds like your generation. Not only will BBs be one of the very few generations to leave this place worse off than they found it, but BBs have also screwed up parenting to the point where we now have to have a "radical" parenting movement ("Free Range Kids") that desperately tries to restore some some sanity.
I grew up in Eastern Europe during communist times, which was very old-school and worlds apart from today's parenting, but still managed to provide me with a great childhood. If I want to bring up my kids in the same way (lots of independent, unsupervised play from very early on, real responsibilities), then I'd be viewed as some kind of pariah and my neighbours will probably call child services.
You mean as opposed to fighting world wars and stuff like that?
What exactly did the BBs screw up. Do you want the good old values of early 20th century back? Women belong into the kitchen? No sex before marriage? And what not...
Also, will the kids support the unsustainable retirement lifestyles if they can't afford them? It seems unlikely.
And we still don't know how things will play out. Maybe it was a genius move to take up all that credit.
As for the atomic bombs, yes it was terrible, but some one was going to. And for once, "we" saw and learned that particular lesson. (I pick that out because I think not dropping a nuke since is actually one of humanity's greatest achievements)
Good old values of ..... OK. If I shoot it back in your direction, I could accuse you of wanting SOPA and Islamic terror. That's the other extreme, and I assume you would deny both.
Of course some things we have today are way better. But you have to admit, that if we cant get our kids right, if we cant have proper freedom in the West, if we cant have the free flow of uncensored information, if people in general dont care about each other much and only see life form their own position, can I really not say that the previous generations got it wrong? I mean, these are fundamental things, and what we get in return for their loss is iPads.....
IMHO, we now live in a "I see pretty, must have pretty" society. Dunno if you noticed, but it just went bust. And it went bust because "we" borrowed to get "pretty". First ever recession that was caused by pure greed. And no one is about to change that. Its all about how we get back to it, so we can have our pretty stuff again. And this was created by the baby boomer lot. And they wont let go.
I dunno. To me all sense of balance has gone, and people are generally just selfish and horribly judgemental. We live in an extreme. And I don't like it that much.
In any case I seriously doubt there was more free speech in earlier times than now (off the top of my head, what about those commie hunting days?). SOPA has not yet been passed, either.
People don't care for each other yadda yadda yadda. Sorry, that is just ideological bullshit. I don't think people are less emotional today than they used to be. And people will never change, complaining about that is just a waste of time.
As for the economic problems, wake me when Apple (a company that has 60% markup on their products) is no longer the most valuable company in the world. Poor people don't buy iPhones.
Oh, but there was. For one, to have commie hunting days, you had to have commies. Which you did. And you also had a mighty, not communistic, labor union movement.
Nowadays, not many are sticking up their necks that much, if anyone.
What would you stick up your neck for? I mean what things would get you into trouble? Wikileaks is the only example that comes to mind (and pretending to be a terrorist, obviously).
Things worth to stick up your neck for and/or that will get you in trouble if you do? Lots of things. From ACTA/SOPA/PIPA, to labour laws, to the bailout, to the mass (statistically imbalanced) imprisonment of blacks, to the profitable prison work-for-rent industry, to the death penalty, to mass surveillance, to foreign policy, the patriot act, to bio-ethics, to Monsanto, to the sorry state of news reporting, to the race for the bottom for jobs (moving to cheap foreign labour), to corporates getting their way, the list goes on and on. Seriously challenging any of those will get you in trouble.
What would it mean if the most successful corporation made a product poor people used? How is that relevant? (Let's ignore Google, creator of perhaps the most valuable product ever created, which they charge absolutely nothing for.) It would be something like real estate, slum lording, which is a quite profitable industry (but no one consolidated company), that isn't helping anyone.
Don't feel bad. There's plenty left for your generation to screw up. You'll get your turn.
For some strange reason, people have an overly romantic view of the past.
A friend of mine, after watching mad men, was waxing nostalgic about how nice things seemed back then. Life was simpler, world is now so screwed up, etc. I just pointed out to him: "You realize that in 1950, you and your girlfriend wouldn't be allowed to live in the same neighborhood, right?"
(The girlfriend was Turkish, and dark brown. Not a chance of her passing.)
The 50's might have been better in some ways, but the boomers also got a few things right.
As for getting drunk at work, big f*n deal.
Whatever that is supposed to mean?
As for the alcohol, true, I don't mind. However, I don't really miss it either - it wouldn't be sufficient to make me want to live in a Mad Men world. And there does not seem to be happening much else besides drinking and philandering.
Among other things, the recognition that there exist two (or more) different sexes that occasionally want to flirt with each other, and that, horror of horrors, this also happens with co-workers.
But we live in a age where they expel a 6-year old boy for kissing with a same-age girl in kindergarten.
Ah yes, the curse of the modern straight male. It's like a child who had all the toys and now is told they have to share. Men's Rights groups tend to think that things are crazy now, you can't treat a woman like a woman! You have to treat them as an equal! Madness!
FWIW, it just means to not treat here like some sexless thing that you have to approach with the utmost caution because the PC police might find anything and everything offensive.
(I understand that some people automatically even the second version to: "so you want to treat women like a sexist pig, slapping their asses and making vulgar comments").
It's getting all the more difficult to discuss this kind of things with americans.
Wow. The main failure of that show is that there's people who think this after watching it. I mean, things in the show are enormously screwed up, the only thing that is nice is the scenery, which to me only makes the contrast more obvious, but apparently for many people that pulls attention away from the main subject of the show.
Also, yeah, long ago parents had their children walk to school alone even when said children where 9. And did other silly stuff. Silly stuff makes for good stories, though, and you can get to use the "what doesn't kill me" line as if it was science.
/rant
Which seems perfectly normal. And nothing happened to them. The perversion is to think that 9 year old children are not capable to walk to school alone. Or to have built a society where people will harm them if they do so. (Actually, in most European cities you'd still be considered paranoid to think 9yo children cannot walk to school).
Michael Ventura, an Austin Chronicle columnist and writer, puts it very nice in this column of his:
My birthday is late in October, so I was still 7 in 1953 when I saw my first film without "parental guidance" -- or parental presence. Frankly, it kind of shocks me to write that, for I can't imagine the parents of 7-year-olds today allowing their children to go to the movies alone. In fact, I doubt a lone 7-year-old would be sold a ticket now anywhere in this country. But once upon a time, it was no big deal. (All of which makes urban parents of 50 years ago sound permissive. They weren't. We would never have dreamed of speaking to our parents, or to any adult, as I now hear so many minutely supervised kids speak to theirs. Disrespect was not tolerated. Neither was whining. I know that sounds like an exaggeration. It's not.)
Actually the whole article is interesting, and it's about movie going in the fifties and children:
Also, "Disrespect was not tolerated. Neither was whining." is begging for "unless the one disrespectful/whining was the parent, then it was okay".
Finding yet another guy whining about the fact that he has to pay more attention to his kids than his father did doesn't really change anything about the previous dude who did that.
You have some mental model where 9-yo going to school were ...commonly harmed and we only get to learn about the few that both survived and romanticized their experiences?!! Nothing of the sort happened --it's just the modern safety paranoia speaking.
First, yes, a FEW kids got harmed, just as a FEW kids get harmed today too. Even adults get harmed. Shit happens. That doesn't mean that harm was something more widespread or it was more prevalent that it is today. Are you that crazy to suggest that parents of the fifties let their kids walk to school (and all around) DESPITE KNOWING that they will get frequently harmed? It is precisely because nothing of the sort happened 99.9999999% of the time that they did so. And this is exactly why Europeans in most EU countries, Africans, Asians and Latin Americans, still allow their kids to do exactly the same.
No, despite CSI, FOX News, etc, the world is not hostile, every black/latino/asian person is not a murderer, every guy in the park is not a pedophile with a van, and serial killers are not a dime a dozen. (Actually, the reports say they are like tops 30-50 active in the US at a time, so more like 1 in 10,000,000).
And it's not like this is something that happened in ancient history. Fifties is not exactly ages ago, not to mention that this happened way up until the seventies / early eighties. It's just that most post 70's american parents just don't know when to stop with their spoiled and overly protected brats --which is what TFA is all about.
Also, "Disrespect was not tolerated. Neither was whining." is begging for "unless the one disrespectful/whining was the parent, then it was okay".
Even if we fathom your idea of the "disrespectful/whining" parent, that is not an excuse for tolerating the case of disrespectful/whining kids. That would be a sure-fire to produce EVEN MORE disrespectful/whining adults when those kids grow up. People you wouldn't look forward to having social/professional interactions with...
Also: segregating not by race but by income, trailer folks and poor blacks are still effectively not allowed to live in the same neighborhoods as rich white folks. And not only because they can't afford it.
I remember coming home from school to no parents till 7:30 or 8:00, running around as I wished (within some very loose limits several miles across), playing with friends etc.
"Be home by dark" and "let us know where you'll be" were pretty much the only rules.
When I was in middle school my parents moved from the apartment complex I grew up in to a house in the country...sometime in the late 80s, but my school was back in a local small city. The first day at school, I left school to walk to the local mall where my parents would pick me up after work and the principal nearly had a heart attack. "But he has to cross 4 or 5 intersections!" "What if something happened?!" My parents were non-plussed, but unfortunately relented, and for the rest of the year I paid $5 for a taxi to drive me 4 blocks to the mall. It felt ridiculous.
None of the other parents thought it was unusual.
Today? There's two bus stops on my street. One for the middle school that's less than a quarter mile away and one street crossing over, and for the high school that's less than a half mile away and one street crossing over -- both have clear pedestrian walks and lights.
They stand there, 20 or 30 minutes waiting for the noisy bus to pick them up, then make 3 or 4 more stops, then drive the quarter of half mile to their schools where they're dumped off.
I don't even know what to say when I leave for work and see the lot of them huddled there waiting to be shuttled the minimal distance that they all run and walk and play after school anyways.
Can't help correlating "sheeple".
those don't fit in with examples of being treated like an adult.
Treated like an adult does not mean doing whatever you liked.
I'm an American living in France, raising my child here. The two big things the French get wrong (that the 50's got wrong) that outweigh everything else they get right are:
1. Corporal Punishment. The French beat their children. Innumerable studies have been done and the results are remarkable consistent: Don't do it. Don't spank. Don't hit. In the 50's it was acceptable to hit your wife and kids. Let's not turn the clock back on that. Please.
2. Children should be seen, not heard. Like in the 50's, the French don't interact much with their kids. This is a terrible mistake. Yes, kids need some alone time -- that's a cop out. They'll make it clear when they do. The big mistake was that we started thinking that good parenting was karate classes and doing puppet shows, but this is like baking cookies: fine occasionally, but don't over do it. Take time with your child, let them direct their play, mainly watch. This is huge for them and one of the best things you can do as a parent. See your child. Understand your child. Be there for your child.
The French, as a culture, condone slapping and hitting their children much more than most other cultures. If we want to talk about one culture versus another, that should be included and sadly, that alone outweighs any of the other positive aspect of French parenting.
Poor stunted unfulfilled beings!
A single family cannot change everything though.
Traffic has increased so much around schools (with parents in a hurry to work) that even parents that would normally let their kids walk often drive their kids. This was not the case just a decade ago.
Another thing is non-supervised play. Kids used to play and do sports in their neighborhood, now there's no one available for your kid to play football, because everyone else is at organized football practice.
Interesting, but why would we be that late?
Some things are physically impossible. There is no parking space in front of my kids' school (I have 3: 6/3/2), and so it's not possible for everyone to drive their kids to school in SUVs at the same time. Most people walk their kids to school, and most kids at age 7 go to school by themselves.
I also can't imagine not having three meals a day and letting my kids just take things out of the refrigerator at any time (there is almost nothing in the refrigerator that can be eaten as is, anyway; if you can't cook you can't eat).
It's true we're a little more lax than our parents, but not that much, I think. We'll see.
There is no question, in my experience, that the number one problem in American parenting psychology is the idea that you need to always respond to the kids' immediate needs and to give them attention. It prevents them from learning how to intellectually stimulate themselves, or be alone for any meaningful period of time, both of which are absolutely indispensable survival adaptations for childhood and adult life. The best parenting for the average American parent I've run into is less parenting.
I also have the sneaking suspicion that people delay or refrain from having kids here more due to the implied premise that having them is a life-consuming ordeal that totally, completely dominates adult consciousness. It shouldn't do that.
Yes, having kids changes your life, but you're still you. You do not live at the pleasure of your child. When hanging out with adult friends with kids, it absolutely astounds me that they end up repeating the same sentence ten times because their kid keeps interrupting them, in a tireless quest for attention. If I did that, my parents would've belted me silly. I guess that's "child abuse" here. Either way, aside from a good spanking, the best thing my parents ever did for me was ignore me a lot. I probably would have turned out to be diagnosed with "ADD" or some other claptrap if they hadn't.
In case you get a "but beatig is wrong" reply.
The line between my world and the adult's world was very clearly defined and it was clear that I had to make my own fun, but the parameters around what I was allowed to do were well defined as well. While I got into some mischief here and there, it had been drilled into me at a young age how a good person behaved and I emulated it.
When I tell parents of how I grew up, the reaction almost without exception is complete horror. I have had several women try to console me. One woman told me that my emotional scars must run deep and gave me the number for a psychologist! Needless to say, I don't talk about it much these days.
Now I don't know if how I grew up would be traumatic to other children. I do think that parents act like their children's entertainers/servants and try hard to ensure they like them or they're cool or, and this I'll never understand, try to be friends with them.
I will say that it worked for me and I don't hate my family for doing it. Quite the opposite in fact.
As far aa being "friends" with your kids, I think there's a narrow line to walk. I want my kids to trust me (and therefore talk to me), and I want to enjoy their company, too. There does need to be some sort of boundry there, though, lest you lose your authority.
She has daily and weekly chores that she's expected to do. She doesn't get an allowance for that - it's just a normal part of contributing to the family duties, and if she wants something, she does extra chores to earn the money.
She's a great kid, never have had a behavior problem out of her. I think part of the reason for that is in addition to just giving her a whole bunch of love, we also respect her and hold her to a standard that we know she's capable of.
That's very much how I was raised, and I have a great relationship with my dad and a lot of respect for him. I hope this leads to a similar relationship with her, and so far it seems to be.
It's working out. She does stupid kid things from time to time, like all kids do, but she's learning to think for herself and make good decisions, too.
Proud of my kid.
Last summer, though, I got a call from a neighbor down the street telling me that my daughter wasn't allowed to come down there and play with her kid anymore, unless I walked her down there, because it was too dangerous for my then 8 year old child to be walking down there by herself... Mind you, you can see their house from our front yard. I feel really badly for the little girl who lives in that house. She's 8 now, not allowed out of the yard, and has no other friends in the neighborhood.
For instance, when I was 8 and cooking for myself in a small house where I lived alone (the main house was all of 150 ft away), I sliced my hand up pretty badly and stitched it back up without telling anyone. Well stitched isn't quite the right word. Held together is more accurate.
I was probably a bit more accident prone as a child than others and I think it confirms many people's worst fears. Personally, I think a few scars here and there add character and I'll still stitch myself up when I get hurt.
And the constant supervision of todays kids, the stifling not being able to get away from adults, the always being transported to something.
It scares the crap out of me to be honest.
Actually empowering children involves giving them choices, yes, but within a framework that constrains them. "You have a choice to eat the candy now, but at a cost later" teaches a child to make long(er)-term decisions than "do whatever you want". This mirrors the actual experiences they will have later in life, where they will have freedom, but still be required to operate with the bounds of lawful society. (I can buy myself X now, but I will have to save later in order to pay my mortgage, etc.)
By refusing to limit children by modeling the realities they will face later in life, adults teach children that consequences are fantasy, often to disastrous results when they grow up.
My father on the other hand. Typical manipulative, dominating, threatening, intimidating, masculine, control freak. I love him but I'm still recovering from his "parenting style". My relationship with him is permanently damaged. Even now that he's older and his testosterone levels have gone down I still avoid him. A decade of being yelled and screamed at and threatened doesn't just go away. It's always there.
I've told him I love him lots of times, I just wish I could tell him how much of an Asshole he was.
My mom I have an extremely strong love for so I never want to do anything to hurt or upset her, but she has no tolerance, so it's very hard for me because I feel like I have to be the perfect child for her. She even has me fetching the paper or a laundry basket for her, it's not like it's a chore that was given to me, but instead I'll be walking by and she says, "Hey I need you to go get the paper for me" and there's nothing I can do. Some of my friends tell me, just tell her no, and I'm like, you don't get it, I'm not really allowed to tell her no, because it would upset her so much. She even frowns on me leaving the house for things except when she knows exactly where I'm going and why, and will pressure me into just staying put, so these days I hardly even leave the house because of her. I do really care about her, and that's why I put up with things about her that drive me crazy.
On the other hand, my dad's so much of a control freak I've had to cut ties with him. Three years ago he did horrible things, my mom divorced him, and I ended up not speaking to him, but he tries to force his way back into my life. He sometimes says, "Well I'm your father so I have a right to... use your car whenever I want to, visit you whenever I want to, tell you to do something whenever I want to." My relationship with him isn't just damaged, but is gone after the way he's treated me. Just the last few months, first he came to my graduation after I specifically told him not to, then he pressured my mom into giving information about me, by refusing to tell her necessary financial information unless she told him some things about me first.
I have a 20 month old daughter. I constantly struggle with this because I want to be nice even when saying 'no', but it doesn't take long to realize that being stern without being scary is the best balance. I realized that my 'no' when she opens the pantry door is totally without conviction and she doesn't respond at all. But my 'no' when she strays off the sidewalk and near the street is obviously much more stern and she knows I'm serious. The most difficult thing is saying 'no' with conviction when you just don't really care that much (like the pantry door).
I think there is another possible explanation: by stopping to chase Leo, it stopped being a game for him. It might not have been her sterner "no" at all.
Also I'd like to point out that the French are famous for putting their kids into kindergarden from the age of 3 months. From my perspective (dad of a 16 months old who is still at home) that seems rather cruel.
It could well be that French children do not see their parents so often and are ready to do whatever is needed to have a comfortable atmosphere during the few hours they see them, in particular if their parents don't play those games.
Not to get too "get off my lawn", but when I was a kid, kids didn't rule public spaces the way they do today. Many parents not only won't tell their kids "no" under any circumstances, they freak out if anybody else asks their precious spawn to stop kicking them on airplanes, running into their legs with shopping carts, or shooting BB guns at their home's windows.
Also, get off my lawn.
Other assertions do hold, at least in my experience, though:
> When French friends visited, by contrast, the grownups had coffee and the children played happily by themselves.
but I'd really find anything else weird.
> And there were no fixed mealtimes; the American kids just went to the refrigerator and took food whenever they wanted. To the French couple, it seemed like the American kids were in charge.
When I went to the US, I did notice this difference (no fixed mealtimes, at least during the day, and regular raiding of the fridge whenever) but I don't see how that makes it "seem like the American kids were in charge", it's just that there's no fixed mid-day meal time.
You don't need to go to France to find well-behaved children, but this is what appeals to Americans the most: "Beautiful redhead child", France is great, etc. And these reaffirming notions are great in appeasing your audience and selling books.
Interesting article b/c Gary Marx, Professor Emeritus in Sociology at MIT, wrote (in 1961) :
http://web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/whitenegro.html
Be warned, you may be slightly offended. A synopsis. On the cusps of the "revolution" in 1961 America, Marx states American mothers were increasingly trying to be "hip". Now, there is actually a magazine called "Hip Mama" sold at Whole Foods ( http://hipmama.com/ )
He mentions a story about a hippie, who were then called "beats", firing a caretaker because the caretaker's thoughts on raising children was too rigid, traditional and overbearing. I think this is where the temper-tantrum nation , me-first phenomenon began.
I have friends like the author of this article who want to empower their children, not tell them "no", etc. For them, it comes from an almost religious belief in freedom. Meaning , whenever making a decision focus on what is most free as opposed to what works.
I remember watching a segment about a high school science class in Oregon who threw imported crayfish into a local stream because they didn't believe in killing, and wanted the crayfish to be free. Well, the non-local crayfish started killing off the local crayfish.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/jan-june11/pledge_03-...
Never thought that an Eddie Murphy sketch would be close to on-topic on HN, but here it is anyway (I think his story refers to the late '60s-early '70s): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gsbk_lwioxY
However, having lived in the US and France extensively (I'm French and have been raised by French parents), I find that the author has the good points about general attitude.
"We're not at your service" is something that my parents would often say to me and my brothers as kids, and there was always a distinction between "grownups" and "kids" - when my parents had their friends over for dinner, we knew that they were not to be interrupted and just played with their friends' kids (and everyone was happy that way, actually- grownups got their time to enjoy, and since they were busy we were free to do things between kids that we wouldn't have tried to do had they been watching).
Parents tend give more independence to their kids as well- for example having no problems sending them off to summer camps for a few weeks so that they can have some vacation of their own.
However, I have also worked extensively with kids in France over the past 5+ yers, and find that parents are slowly adopting the "anglo-saxon" way- there are much more "helicopter" parents now than there used to be.
Anyway we ended up with 3 Eagle Scouts, one now a veteran, one a CS graduate from CMU and one a 3-time all-stater in cello. Just regular Iowa country kids. You could trust them with anything - your car, your life savings, your girlfriend.
They learned to work hard at a young age (6-8) at home, at church and on their Uncle's farm; to get themselves organized for school from the start; to clean a bathroom and do dishes. We never talked down to them.
Their friends work hard with a smile, want nothing more than to be treated as an adult. Its easier I guess when their friends share the same goals, the lessons seem natural and normal.
We did this consciously, left the big city when they were old enough to feel limited by sidewalks and malls, and bought land in Iowa where I grew up. I don't think that's all necessary or possible for everyone. But it sure helped!
To quote the YC application form "Please tell us about the time you most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage."
Creativity, rule-bending and being outspoken are often hallmarks of innovators and entrepreneurs. But obviously patience and obedience are virtues as well. Culturally we have to make trade-offs deciding which of these we want to encourage in kids and which we don't.
It's silly to pretend there's just one way that's better across the board. TMTOWTDI.
Later, I wanted to program computers, so they let me. I talked on shady IRC channels learning about network security and operating systems, and that was fine. The important thing is that there were boundaries—no giving away personal information, for example—and the ever-present ability to ask for help if I really needed it. Perhaps it’s not about refraining entirely from breaking the rules, but rather about learning which rules are okay to break.
The article is almost entirely anecdotal with little offered to back up supposition and conjecture.
last time i was in France the general atmosphere was similar to this music video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU7bFpPJiww, teenagers burning down their own city etc. heh.
no one else tell their kids to say "thanks, please", and no one else dares to say no to whatever stupid things kids might want!
Exactly. Only the French educate their children.
Guess what. Half the people don't educate the children, half of them do. Or maybe it's 2/3. Who cares. The point is it has strictly nothing to do with being French.
(I'm French.)
The part I liked about the sales job is the idea of supporting the child's autonomy ("Cadre means that kids have very firm limits about certain things -- that's the frame -- and that the parents strictly enforce these. But inside the cadre, French parents entrust their kids with quite a lot of freedom and autonomy.")
France is that magical place where the boundary line between kids' autonomy and parental authority gets drawn in the perfect mutually satisfying place.
(Not French, but love visiting France.)
She said, "Funny that there aren't any kids here." I said, "There are tons of them! Just look!"
Not only were there at least 30 teenagers of various ages, there were more than 10 young children under 5, including one infant in arms. All were so calm and quiet that she didn't even know they were there. Not that the occasional toddler didn't try to run away from her parents -- I saw it happening -- but everything was chill. No screeching. No tantrums. No "COME BACK HERE!".
It didn't stand out to me cuz I got used to it, but my friend was flabbergasted.
Austrians love their kids and treat them kindly and with respect, but never do the kids get the idea that they are the entirety of the adults' world. (Which sounds harsh at first, but that kind of relationship is truly codependent and bad for everyone.)
What to Submit On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
:)
There are also hackers out there that are interested in politics, salad recipes, what Bill Murray is doing, and lolcats. I just feel like I'm on Reddit is all.
We're all guilty of it. This is how it starts.
That's what Digg and Reddit said. I'll mark my calendar for 5 years from now, we'll come back and have this conversation again. I'm probably wrong, but I might be right. If anything I'm a hypocrite for contributing to this story in the comments above.
This is total anecdotal evidence. but I am not sure how can one quantify snottiness.
I'd be snotty too.