Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don't

Recently--and I'm not sure WHY this is happening, maybe it's the current parenting zeitgeist or maybe I just keep stumbling upon articles addressing the topic--I've read many discussions on the subject of "proper parenting." Basically, the debate boils down to these two houses: Disciplinarian or Child's Best Friend, and everyone, it seems, is vehemently admonishing the other side for doing it all wrong. And actual parents are the ones caught in the middle, never knowing what is the right thing to do--and I'm one of them.

Although, let me be frank, I've NEVER put much stock in parenting "guides." If these people had been right through the last few generations, then we would be living in a Utopia where all of these grown-up children would be perfect social creatures who always got along and always did whatever work was necessary to make the world a fantastic place. They would be productive, empathic, dedicated, hard working, intelligent, sophisticated, polite, courteous, gracious, sportsmanlike, creative, imaginative, healthy, dextrous, compassionate, talented people.

But the world is full of douchebags. FULL. We have, almost certainly, reached our capacity. Critical mass will be achieved within a few short years and we will experience a douchebag overload. Douchebags will explode forth from this planet and spread their doucheiness out into the cosmos or into an alternate reality or something.

Now, is this the result of generations of bad parenting, or is this simply the result of having a planet that has 6 billion people on it, and the simple fact is that douchebags are loud, obnoxious, and seem to take up FAR more space and reality than they deserve because they are so hard to function around?

I think "yes." To whatever it is my point was supposed to be.

Here's how the philosophies (or the opposition's interpretation of those philosophies, anyway, since it's always easier to nail down the simplified and caricatured opposing view than it is to offer an ACTUAL interpretation of something so nuanced and complicated as a couple decades of parenting to raise a child to adulthood) break down.

Disciplinarians: These parents reign down terror upon their children. They squash all creativity and seek to bully or mentally/emotionally/physically abuse a child in order to "keep them in line." Children are taught from infancy that they will be punished for ALL outbursts of individuality and differentness. Often categorized as "old school" parenting--where a parent wasn't afraid to wallop a disobedient child, even if said child was acting out in the middle of a crowd of SRS workers, and the old adage "children should be seen, not heard" was enforced with a wooden spoon or yard stick (or a withering glare that threatened the eventuality of such punishment). According to the opposition, children who live through these conditions will inevitably lash out through bullying/laziness/slouching/premarital sex/ or whatever other undesirable traits that "the youth" are exhibiting that old people don't like that will "show them" that they can do their own thing despite the threat of punishment. Parents who do this are evil dictators and Hitler himself would shake his head and cluck his tongue at them if he saw how these parents treated their kids.

Child's Best Friend: These parents reign down unwavering love and support on their children. Discipline is achieved through positive reinforcement only. If a child does something bad, then that child is gently directed to do something else that is acceptable. This doesn't happen very often, though, because very nearly everything is acceptable--it is an "expression" of childhood, and children should be allowed to define themselves and rule over their immediate surroundings lest their creativity/intelligence/ambition/whatever be squelched. Furthermore, the child should be protected from EVERYTHING bad through any means possible. According to the opposition, children who live through these conditions will inevitably lash out through bullying/laziness/slouching/premarital sex/ or whatever other undesirable traits that "the youth" are exhibiting that old people don't like because they've never had to deal with reality of any sort and they are completely unprepared for how the world actually works. Parents who do this are hippie deadbeats who have never contributed anything worthwhile to society and the leading cause of gingivitis, rickets, irritable bowel syndrome, and the moral decay of society. They spit in the face of "the good old days" and won't be happy until society is crumbling around them.

That about sums it up.

Sort of.

But what is the RIGHT thing to do?

And there's the rub. It won't matter. No matter what you do, your child will blame everything bad in his/her life on your parenting (or, perhaps, they will love you too much to actually blame you, but their therapists almost certainly will all the same--because you let your child love you TOO much but they didn't have the respect they needed to understand that). In short, it doesn't matter what you do, you're going to do it wrong.

And that's not surprising. Parenting happens every waking minute (and many barely awake minutes) of every day, and unless you have the discipline of a Buddhist monk, you aren't going to be able to maintain whatever "ideal" you are striving towards. You are going to screw up. If you want strict discipline, you will find yourself momentarily incapable of dishing it out and your child will run rampant, doing what his/her heart desires for a little while as you put your metaphorical head between your legs and hide. If you want to love and support your child through positive reinforcement, you're going to lose your shit every once in awhile and bellow orders at your children backed with threats of the most unrealistic kinds of cartoon violence when you've finally reached your breaking point.

And all because sometimes you just can't take their abuse anymore.

Yeah. That's right. I said abuse. Children are the WORST practitioners of physical/mental/emotional abuse. And all of this debate boils down to "How do I react to my child's abuse?"

How DO I react to our child's abuse? What's the best way? What do I need to do to make my child the best person possible?

That's the age old question, and one that surely doesn't have a right answer. Because, as I said, it doesn't matter what you do, it will probably be wrong. If you lash out, your child will grow up afraid of people and negative consequences and go through life with a variety of stunting complexes. If you coddle and over-protect, then your child will grow up incapable of functioning in a world that doesn't give a damn about them or how they feel when they become adults. To my way of thinking, there has to be a happy medium somewhere. A child has to know love and caring and be able to treasure social contact and feel free to express creativity and individuality. And a child has to be able to blend into society and understand that the world does not now, nor ever will, revolve around him/her.

Really, I think it all boils down to teaching personal responsibility. Not just because personal responsibility is great. It is. It's necessary to feel fulfilled in life and to find a happy place in the world. But, more importantly, if a grown-up child feels personally responsible, then that child will likely not blame the parent for doing the wrong thing.

And THAT is the most important aspect of parenting--getting away with it. But how to make that happen is still a mystery to me, and I'm still convinced that, no matter what I do, it will be the wrong thing. As with all things, only time will tell. In the meantime, though, I'll just keep disagreeing with everything parenting advice columns tell me I SHOULD be doing, because they don't know any better than I do at this point. If they did, then nobody would be arguing about the best way to do things anymore.