At home bored and been thinking about this kid thing….it’s kinda hard to avoid when you’re a parent!
Funnily enough KB is full of threads about kids.
Parents looking for support/encouragement/advice/info re raising their kids, people who want kids but can’t have them and still others who despite hating and not wanting kids have a lot to say on the subject and like to tell everyone how thankful they are that they don’t have kids and so don’t have to be bothered by them.
Firstly I’m not interested in all the real bad ass kids and their crap parents out there and that whole argument about how people should have to pass licenses to breed and all that. To align with the current attitude that ‘mentioning bad biker behaviour on KB does no good and doesn’t get to those that really need to take note’ that isn’t what this thread is about.
Secondly, I don’t judge anyone for their choice to have kids or not. Personal choice is just that – to each his own. IF you don’t want kids and do everything in your power to avoid having them – good for you and good choice...no kid deserves to be unwanted and unloved. If you have kids and think they are the bomb – great! Those kids did well to pick you
Anyway where I am going with all this? I’m wondering about whether the conditioning we had growing up has affected our attitudes towards kids and towards the notion of having kids. If I am to be blunt I am referring to the intolerance and general grumpy-bumness attitude towards kids (of some).
There’s a current thread talking about how kids have done stupid kid stuff and wrecked some guys property. It’s a bummer, but boy ain’t that a tired old story, who doesn’t have one of those to tell? Hell I could tell a fair few about BIG kids (aka adults) doing stupid kid stuff and wrecking property. How many times were you yourself one of those kids? ME, heaps of times! Did I feel bad when I did these things? YES. Were their (non violent) consequences for me? YES. Did I do anything twice…nope! Have I turned into an axe wielding maniac with no morals? Not yet!
We lament about how in the good old days we walked to school, and in the good old days we could stay out in the street for ages after it got dark, we joke about how playgrounds used to be hard and now they are all padded and covered and safe and about how we developed better co-ordination because we had to cope with the old army tent frames over concrete playground surfacesI hear people talking about how kids have no consequences these days as schools and parents can’t smack…HA!
What about the good old days when people used to allow kids to be kids and while you didn’t let them get away with murder you expected that they were just learning and with the right guidance could be taught and or reasoned with. They were scallywags and little sods and all that…a stark contrast to the attitude that they are sub-human, can only learn from a good smack and require muzzling until they are 25…for doing things that are really just naughty kid stuff and not at all Mark Burton-esk in nature.
SO - In terms of the conditioning you received and how has it affected your attitude towards kids? Are those thoughts you hold in your head about what ‘having kids means’ and what little buggars they can be just old headtapes from your own upbringing?
I never thought I was maternal. I had grown up being told that having kids would ruin my life. I’m an only child who was brought up strict with intolerant parents, no other family around and very little contact with ‘small people’. I grew up with the following messages regularly reinforced…any of these sound familiar to anyone?
- Kids are to be seen and not heard.
- Kids are to speak only when spoken to.
- What would you know? You are just a kid.
- Kids were always sent outside to play so they wouldn't bother the adults while they relaxed.
- Kids got blamed for everything in the house that went missing, as it couldn’t possibly have been the adults. And actually it was dad!
- Kids are just so damn excitable and full of energy – calm down already!
- Kids are smelly, loud expensive and parenting is work you don’t get paid for.
I can remember what it felt like to be that kid. At times, invisible, unwanted, un-important, a nuisance and silly. BUT still as a parent I catch myself expecting and thinking the same things as my parents and at times I hold my tongue in the interests of not spending all day of every day busting my boy’s balls...pick your battles they aren’t all worth fighting.
SO - Is it really important that we strive to ‘make’ our kids perfect RIGHT NOW every day to please everyone else, and make it easier for everyone else…and to satisfy those old conditioned expectations from our upbringings? Of course this might mean I am not thought a useless parent…SHOCK HORROR anything but that! You know what though…the mother and father mafia can bite my big hairy bahookey! Well behaved children do not equal good kids…in my experience it just meant I wasn’t getting caught!
What is the perfect child? What does having a perfect kid achieve ? So we may be the only ‘kid couple’ that our ‘no kid’ friends would ‘consider’ having around to their place. We could have the Bree Vandercamp look about town, we would colour co-ordinate and wear the happy functional family façade. In reality it would be miserable, there would be no enjoyment, he would have little self esteem, would become angry and sullen, would not learn self confidence or about making good decisions himself and would likely rebel and become a REAL bad kid.
Kids aren’t learning empathy and compassion, role models are fewer and further between and parents alone cannot move mountains. The science suggests that when kids get to school their peers become more influential than their parents. How many parents have you heard say that their kids will listen and obey others more easily at times than themselves…btw – this is actually a very common and natural thing and is nothing to do with these parents being ‘hopeless parents’
They are moving to start teaching empathy and compassion in the school curriculum. It’s a dog eat dog world now and everyone is out for themselves. Some parents don’t give a stuff about their kids. Lots of adults don’t give a stuff about kids generally either….so kids have to be tougher…and they are, aren’t they?! Can ya blame them?
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Originally Posted by Usarka
but I hope the school we've moved house to be zoned to is above that shit.
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