I think in this particular case you could replace "civilization" with "basic manners and recognition of the rights of others" it would mean about the same thing.
I agree, of course, at least in far too many cases. I know good kids. I know of a lot more kids whose main concerns are their addictions to screens and to always getting their own way no matter what, and no matter the cost to others, who by and large they lack the empathetic capacity even to see.
My strong temptation is to view failing to meet basic developmental milestones on a mass scale as an uncorrectable problem, but the truth is we don't know what is possible. But what IS possible, if it is to be positive and redemptive, needs to originate on a foundation of general recognition that there is in fact a large problem. Until that happens, things will unquestionably continue to get worse.
To that end, I think pieces like this are helpful. I have put a lot of thought into all this, but am going to resist sharing more at this point.
Thanks for a thoughtful reply! I do hope for correction and redemption, and I agree it’s absolutely vital for recognition to take place before change can happen. This was a great piece by a respected writer and humorist. I’m thankful for it!
Maybe not. Prisons are expensive and the 'socialization' people get in them almost guarantees they'll be criminals for life. How about caning? Vandals, say, get six strokes and that's that -- no prison, no criminal record, no ... nothing. Just the discipline they never got elsewhere. They say that vandalism is next to nonexistent in Singapore and that's because they cane vandals.
I once met a high level government official from Singapore at a dinner, where he proudly and matter of factly told me they hang drug distributors on Fridays. I have been to Singapore several times. One of the safest and cleanest cities in the world.
I'm not the only one, and they do say he was not absolutely sinless, but I worship Lee, he had a common sense that is now almost impossible in a Western man. And he achieved the miracle of a genuinely multicultural city. The only other people to pull that off are the Swiss.
"Children now are like animals who have no natural predators left."
My Granny (1862-1958 A Great Woman. One did not suffer fools well, or for long.) Said something similar "Children now are like animals, you have to train them"
Imagine a member of the generation Sedaris is referring to reading this entire piece, never mind that sentence. Could they make it to the end without throwing up, covered by the violence of their vomit? Oh the horror! The macroagression! Would they delete the Free Press from their bookmarks?
By the way my favorite line, apart from your good example is:
'The solution isn’t for every couple to start having five kids again, but maybe for one chosen couple to have five, and the other four couples to go without—either have a full litter you can’t pay that much attention to, or nothing at all.'
If you haven't had a bunch of fights before you're 18 - and more important, lost your fair share - chances are you going to be like the whiny useless little shites described here.
My son (now 28) was attending a nice private school, but being harassed by a bully in his year. Despite my son's prowess with logic and reasoning, he could not persuade the boy to desist. Eventually, when cornered one day, my son gave him a swift right hook. The boy fell to the ground, with only his pride hurt. He never gave my son a hard time again over the next 6 years of school.
Sometimes getting physical is the only language that will convey the message.
While I do wish I had a bit more friction as a youth when it comes to physicality, no one I grew up with got in any fights. They occurred almost exclusively between the 'trouble kids'.
I would argue that if you are getting in enough fights to be losing your fair share, maybe you shouldn't do so many things that lead to violence.
You would be wrong. Kids fight for a lot of reasons. And losing to a bigger, stronger opponent is no shame if you're fighting for something worthwhile. Even in adulthood I had a few fights and no losses. So far. But I'd rather lose a fight than suffer the humiliation of not fighting for something right.
I guess my point was based on my limited experience with fights in school. They never seemed to be about something important. It was more of an Honor cultural fight because someone felt slighted or just disliked someone.
But, perhaps my point is more about the lack of nuance in your statement. You apparently come from a world where beating people up is a regular form of resolving disputes. That is not the case for everyone. My parents would have punished the crap out of me if I was getting into fights with any kind of regularity. The first one I might have gotten away with if I were defending myself or someone else. But the second would have started bringing into question why I kept finding violence as the solution to problems.
It might have been the time. I grew up in the 50s and early 60s. We settled things with our fists; not kicking or knives or guns. So few people got badly beaten. And if fact, many of the guys I fought became close friends. A bond of mutual respect. In my adult life, I've had a few. But of a different variety. My then gf and I were attacked on street in Buffalo and I had no choice. Similarly, when my two then young sons were threatened. But perhaps a life spent playing competitive contact sports reduced my inhibitions. My point, however, remains unchanged. There are some things worth fighting for no matter the consequences. As to honor, insults don't need to be settled with violence. Better to walk away. But if you walk away when someone weak is being harmed, there is no honor in that.
Bare knuckle punching on humans as can hurt the aggressor just as much as the target if done with too much force and a lack of technique. There’s a reason why boxing gloves were invented.
There was a day when, if a young man of 18 or so was standing before a judge, he was offered a choice. "Son, you have a choice, you can go to jail or you can join the Marines." Most chose the Marines.
Today you do, I don't know if that was the case when judges were able to do that. The policy allowing judges to make that offer ended sometime in the 1970's or 60's.
I think it was Mark Twain who said, “Beat your children once a day. If you don’t know what for, they will.”
But seriously in my 12 yrs of education by nuns, never was a child struck. The nuns had a much better weapon. Shame. There is no worse punishment than having to stand before your 49 other classmates and confess what you did, have the nun shame you, then call your Mom so you could go home and admit to shaming your family. You never make that mistake again. And you develop a conscience. I don’t think kids are taught to have consciences anymore. They are never wrong, it’s always someone else’s fault, it’s Unfair!!
A sense of shame - that moderating force - has been excused and excised out of society. Every impulse, no matter how uncivilized, is celebrated while shame is condemned. For many, it is no longer part of the human psyche. The results are predictable.
This is the entire point of Queer (and the TAIN2S that belong to it). It is to bring to center those aspects of human behavior considered obscene, perverse and reprehensible.
Remember that the next time someone claims to be “Queer” simply so they can feel like they belong to a club.
You do realize that Bari and Nellie are married lesbians who, according to you, sin on a daily basis. I’m pretty sure they celebrate it. They don’t want a hug. They want some respect. Gay people are born that way. It’s genetic. They’re not “sinning”.
Not if the message is that “ humanity as a whole has a sin problem, but you don’t have to deny it or even worse celebrate it to live a fulfilling life.” In other words, “we all sin in one way or another and I love you even though your sin is gay sex, which you should not deny is a sin, and you certainly shouldn’t celebrate it in a PRIDE parade.”
The RC a church, of which I am a lapsed member, now says with regard to gay people that we should “love the sinner but hate the sin.” That’s about as disrespectful as you can get, imho.
David Sedaris, the author of this brilliant essay, is also gay. I count him as a national treasure. If you’ve never read any of his books highly recommend them.
“… they aren’t alone; and humanity as a whole has a sin problem, but you don’t have to deny it or even worse celebrate it to live a fulfilling life.”
There’s no other way to interpret this statement than that gay people are “sinning” and not only denying that they are sinning, but celebrating it through PRIDE marches, etc. You know they’re not using the word “pride” as the meaning of the sin of pride, they’re using it to show that they’re not ashamed of being gay or hiding “in the closet” because society disapproves of them. They are “out and proud”, no longer hiding but rather fully living their lives.
And not only can genetics “not be changed by a flip of the switch”, genetics cannot be changed. Period. Gay people fall in love with each other and express that love physically, just like straight people do. Promiscuous sex is a sin for straight and gay alike. But loving sex in a committed relationship or marriage is beautiful for gay and straight alike. Why should these human beings that God made as they are be denied something the rest of us are blessed with?
Fwiw, my son is gay and he is a blessing. Without him, I would not have grown to understand this uniqueness that God has made. My son is still single at the age of 33 and I pray daily for him to find a man he can spend his life with in a loving, committed relationship and eventual marriage. He’s a beautiful human being and I am PROUD of him. He has two masters degrees, speaks 3 languages, and teaches ESL. He leads an exemplary life. His first cousin, my niece, is also gay. Genetics. Runs in the family. In my family, my uncle’s brother was gay, and his granddaughter is a lesbian. Genetics. My best friend’s brother was gay and her nephew is gay. Genetics.
You cannot change these people and they don’t change. They have learned not to hate themselves and instead take pride in their unique existence. They are not sinners. David Sedaris, the author of today’s TFP essay is gay and married to another gay man. They have every right to celebrate their existence which has been demonized for way too long.
Thank you for being concerned that you may have offended me. I’m certain you didn’t mean to. But it’s Thanksgiving day and I am thankful for my gay son, and my gay relatives and for all the gay young people I have met because they have taught me to be a more open and accepting human being. No one has the right to judge these people, especially not a church or a religion.
While my mother was of the “spare the rod spoil the child” era, and my brother and I had our share of spankings or whippings with a paddle, the worst thing she could do to me was sit me down on the bed and tell me how much she was hurt by what I did, said, did not do, or did not say. That created a hole in my heart and hurt much more than physical punishment.
Our squad leaders during Plebe summer at West Point did the same thing. If you screwed up, you didn't get in trouble, your whole squad got in trouble for not squaring you away. Most learned the lesson because they couldn't take the shame and ire from their squad mates.
I disagree. Shame is still huge. It is what Cancel Culture is based on. They have just changed what is appropriate shame material. Oppressors should fee shame for just existing, oppressed can do literally anything they want.
"You can't shame or humiliate modern celebrities. What used to be called shame and humiliation is now called publicity. And forget traditional character assassination. If you say a modern celebrity is an adulterer, a pervert, and a drug addict, all it means is that you've read his autobiography." P.J. O'Rourke, Give War a Chance, A Call for a New McCarthyism, 1992.
Since everyone on Instagram and TikTok considers themselves a celebrity, you can now just substitute "people" where it says "celebrities."
The sad part is, the answers have been found, and practiced by some for decades. But we don't teach them broadly.
Step 1 - meet the child with empathy - your feelings are a real, natural human reaction that are totally understandable
Step 2 - regardless of your feelings, this is how we expect you to behave when you have them.
Step 3 - logical consequences if you choose otherwise
Society naturally affords choices, but has boundaries and logical consequences. Show your kids respect and prepare them for the world as independent citizens by providing them with those as well.
I grew up in a Chinese household. The most damning insult you could be subject to, was being declared so clueless, that you didn’t know you should be ashamed of your behavior.
Also went to Catholic school 12 years - and then taught in Catholic school 12 years. I have to say that every nun I had as a teacher was an excellent educator and lovely human being. They were entirely devoted to teaching. Wish my kids had some nuns as teachers.
I was impressed by how the nuns handled bullies back in the day. No problem at all. They were dragged into the principal’s office and, after a bit of shaming, made to apologize. Now a beefy 40 year old principal can’t seem to handle a twelve year old bully. I have seen it with my own eyes. They actually frequently advise the bullied kid—the victim—to change schools.
Have you ever read The Last Catholic in America, followed by Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect up followed by The Unoriginal Sinner and the Ice Cream God.
Catholic school in elementary, high school and college.
If you never went to Catholic school, you’d never get it.
There was a one person play in Chicago called, “Midnight Catechism”. One nun in a classroom, monologue. Absolutely hilarious, at least to all the Catholics.
In Twain's "Tom Sawyer," Aunt Polly cuffs Tom about the ears for some offence - stealing sugar from the sugar-bowl, I think - and he tells her that it wasn't he; it was his cousin Sid.
"Well, you're not a lick a-miss," she responds, and goes on about her business.... classic stuff.
You are so right. When I was 5 or 6, I took some bubble gum from the display at the grocery checkout. Mom saw me chewing gum, and marched me back to the store. I had to apologize to the cashier and the manager, and of course we paid for the gum.
I don’t have a lot of memories of being 6 yrs old, 60 years later, but I never forgot the shame I felt that day.
I, too, suffered from twelve years of priests & penguins. I never saw them touch anyone either, but somehow you felt guilty for breathing air that could better have been used by someone else. I'm still a Recovering Catholic. I have six siblings, and had parents who never read to or sang to us either. Not much slapping, but a whole lot of ignoring. We all grew up to be fine, decent people who managed to hold down jobs and raise average kids. We even like each other!
I never went to Catholic school, but my siblings did. I always thought that measuring instrument they wrapped your knuckles with was the “golden ruler...”
Sometimes the nuns take it too far. My former wife was made to remove her blouse, and stand in front of the class in her bra, while she confessed her "sin."
Of course there were some deplorable episodes in the schools but by and large a highly positive experience and preparation for real life. We should be learning that incessant indulgence and tolerance of nonsense propaganda in the secular schools has a tremendous negative impact on society. We ain’t seen nothing yet.
I seriously doubt anyone here would think that’s going too far. They clearly believe that humiliating children is not only very good for them but hilarious.
" A mother ushered her child, aged seven or so, through the door as I passed. I walked for another five minutes before turning back, surprised to see that the school bus hadn’t moved in the time I’d been gone. Rather it was where I had left it, the mother still at the door, mewing, over the sound of her crying child, “Well, Atticus, honey, where do you want to sit?”
So the bus driver and all these kids had to wait until this one woman’s son was happy with his seat? "
Disciplining this child, and mother, would have been hilarious!
he definitely should have. but unfortunately, the mother would have gotten the school bus driver fired. and he probably drives two hours a day, each way, from where he can afford to live, to drive that bus, for pittance. :(
Discipline? That doesn’t send a message. Drop kicking the kid off the bus and into his mother so she falls over with him on top of her, THAT sends a message (and would be hilarious to boot).
Discipline or not it absolutely sends a message - that Atticus is not the only person of significance in the scenario. It is a valuable lesson - that in public there are standards for acceptable behavior and that community requires adherence thereto. And holding up an entire bus is not acceptable. If he cannot get on the bus, take him home. This is not a difficult concept.
She didn't seem to have been traumatized, and maintained her faith in the Catholic religion. Things did get a bit messy when she married me, a Jew. Her next marriage was to a Mormon. I lost touch with her after that. My current wife is a Buddhist and Buddhists are tolerant of all religions. Or at least until one of their own leaves the religion.
I am a Jew because my mother was Jewish. I never knew anything about the religion until I became a Christian and read the old testament. After 18 yrs. in Evangelical Christian churches, I left because I couldn't believe all those stories in the Bible. The words of Jesus ring true as they are the words of the Buddha and others, but I can't follow the religion. Paul, in particular annoys me. He's a real hard ass. I can relate to John and there's no way, Peter, an uneducated fisherman, could have written those letters. The stories about Jesus, to me, are just that, stories. These days , I don't feel like I have to belong to any religion and if I was going to be anything, I'd be a Taoist. The person who brings me closest to thinking about God, is the Persian Sufi poet, Hafiz.
Freedom from shame - in Book VIII of Plato’s “Republic” he blames the end of democracy on the relentless pursuit of freedom well beyond reason … and perhaps beyond shame as well.
Huh. I was educated by Irish nuns from 1st through 8th grade. Now anytime I hear an Irish brogue, I’m certain that someone is about to smack me with a ruler.
We went to church each Sunday. It was probably the early 80’s and we were old enough to sit with our friends. We knew it was so cool to be able to do that 🙄 My brother was in 6th grade..,I’ll always remember it. He was goofing off with his friend and the pastor stopped his sermon and asked someone to go sit with “those boys in the back”. I was so scared because I knew what would happen to him once we got home! 😀
In order to elicit it, they need to understand they have done something wrong. This would therefore require parents and other adults to establish the difference between right and wrong.
Many are too woke to do so, hence a generation of shameless, whiny brats.
Oof. This. I once had a client who had cheated on her husband with another woman. Had gone on to date another woman, marry her, and continued to stalk her ex-husband on social media and hide it from her current spouse. When I asked her (in relation to fairly obvious guilt and shame she was feeling/expressing) how she reconciled it with her conscience—in fact, any of her actions— she replied that she often ignored it and didn’t really listen to it because it made her feel uncomfortable. She terminated shortly after that because she got a dosage of antidepressants that finally made her feel better. Do with that as you will.
B S growing up in a Protestant Church is when I came to realize my mother had an arm that could stretch & reach past 6 kids to pinch me for whispering!
Three kids in our family, much jockeying entering church so we wouldn't be the one who had to sit next to my dad. No corporal punishment, my parents disciplined with "the look."
To call my aunt Mattie a ball-o-fire was to seriously understate the issue. Her husband had lost his right arm - the whole arm - when it was literally yanked out of the socket in a 1930s mining accident. Back then, before the union was a thing, a one-armed miner was no longer useful and lost his job immediately. There were no jobs for women, but she and her husband, growing and selling produce, honey and living frugally, managed to send three boys to medical school and one into dentistry. Just before his death, Uncle Omer showed his bank book to my older brother: just over one million dollars. "And none of it came from my children: I earned every penny." Indeed he did.
Mattie kept her brains until her late 'nineties; even in her early 'nineties she was still a force of nature. One Thanksgiving she and several helpers had prepared a sumptuous dinner for the entire family - a lovely affair, with close to a dozen in attendance. We laughed and joked, everyone aware and respectful of how hard life had been for Aunt Matt and Uncle Omer and how successful they had been.
Except for one - her now-also elderly daughter, Mary, who soured the festivities several times by repeatedly cutting-off the old matriarch in mid-sentence and once or twice giving her the senile-old-lady-tut-tut and condescending smile.
Aunt Matt was far, far from senile - and not one to tolerate such things. After a final subtle insult from Mary, Aunt Matt slowly rose, walked around the table until she was squarely behind her now seventy-year-old daughter - and slapped her across the face.
... and then the classic line, which we still laugh about at every Thanksgiving dinner: "I'm still your mother, young lady!"
Young lady. Oh I love that. A Thanksgiving to remember.
When Matt was a young newlywed, she and a sister-in-law had some sort of dispute. The story goes that she chased Jane all the way down the holler to the old homeplace, dragged her out from under the bed and gave her a thorough whipp'in. Like many of the mountain people, hers was an honor culture, and she never backed down. Ever.
GREAT story!!! Thank you! I am always amazed by how some people manage to thrive in spite of adverse conditions. Life lessons that should be taught these days!
There is long life in my family - especially the men. Aunt Mattie's oldest son Bruce, a retired doctor, is still living at 95. I spoke with him a couple of years ago by phone and asked him what he was doing.
"Well, I'm so Goddamned old the local college lets me take courses for free, so I've been taking classes right along."
"What are you taking?"
"Well, I ran out of math classes, so this semester I'm taking C++ programming and Differential Equations."
(My God. DiffEq is tough when you are 23, let alone 93.) "Really. How are you doing?"
Typical laconic response: "Oh, I have A's."
"What do the other students think of you?"
Very matter-of-fact: "Oh, they hate me."
Every time some snowflake cries about his or her hard life, I think of Bruce and his parents and laugh.
"DiffEq" is what the engineering students call it. Differential equations. I took that to mean it was the last math class available at this small college. Not very useful to a nonagenarian, I would suspect....
I never thought the simple truth could make me laugh so hard! Like the author, I remember my mother clobbering me, and my demanding, “What was that for?”, to which my mother replied, “That was for nothing. Now think what’ll happen if you do something!”
Surprisingly, we've had only one broken bone - Son A fell off his skateboard at 24 and broke his femur - and one set of stitches, right down the middle of Son F's forehead. (Five siblings were in the room, and nobody saw anything.)
Absolutely. My sister and I. Well mostly me, needed a rope, so I could pull her around in the laundry basket. The rope was too long, so I got a butcher knife and decided that I would cut it. So as I was cutting I realized I was cutting towards myself. Next thing you know I had a knife wound in the middle of my forehead. My first words were shit, I'm in trouble now. My sister, and partner in crime, decided we would hide the knife in the pool table and say I hit the corner of a table. Around twenty years later we were dismantling the pool table and there's the knife. I came clean about what happened and still got a smack on the head. I was in my twenties. Lol.
I called for a Boy Scout to bandage F's face and then took him to the corner clinic. As he sat there with blood slowly oozing, the nurse said, "You're a boy, aren't you!"
I think it’s inconceivable to boomer parents and younger that parents are not their kids’ friends. They are Parents. That means discipline, disappointment, being made to wait, punishment, teaching them they are not number one all the time, and telling they are acting like selfish little jerks. Tough but necessary lessons. I was called a mean Mom many a time. Never bothered me. My parents were way harder.
Our daughter (31 y.o) lamented recently that many of her friends say their Mom is their best friend, and she feels bad that my wife and her are not best friends. My wife told her "I'm your mother. I'm not your friend." Spoken by a women with 7 siblings, married to a man with 8. We know the difference between a Mom and a friend.
Interesting, but decidedly not a hard & fast rule.
I posted once before here of my wife’s and my experience raising five children as young parents. We didn’t overthink it and absolutely didn’t “helicopter.” We punished them for bad grades on report cards, but never checked their homework. And we regularly used the phrase “restaurant behavior” - they all knew precisely what it meant and we declared it in locales other than restaurants as needed to dictate (literally) how they were expected - no, required - to behave.
Anyway, I could go on with examples to illustrate just how much we never, ever tried to be their friends.
But my point is that today at least one daughter regularly refers to my wife as her best friend, two more daughters don’t describe their mother as THE best friend but definitely count her as A best friend, and our two sons talk to her regularly, if not daily. (I would guess they may feel similarly about me, but I’m only writing here of things I’ve heard them say of my wife and I don’t hear what they may say about me.)
And now that I’ve labored to type all that out here on my phone, I’m embarrassed to admit what should’ve been obvious, but wasn’t.
Of course they’re “friends” now, because they can be.
We spent half of last summer in a smaller city in France (I’m bilingual English/French), and we were astonished (and delighted) by the behavior of French children in restaurants. What was particularly striking was that it wasn’t class dependent -- even very clearly working class families’ kids sat properly at the table, ate what they were served, didn’t have electronics to distract them, didn’t dominate the conversations, and used their “indoor voices”.
On the beach, French kids would tear-ass around, shriek (as children do when playing), build sandcastles, and splash in the waves. Again, electronics were notably absent. So it seemed to be a specific learned behavior for restaurants/museums.
I dearly wish Americans would re-evaluate how their children dominate the space around them, and teach them that OTHER PEOPLE have rights, too! As Sedaris said, “Do the parents know that this is not their house?”. To me, this is a precondition underlying our narcissistic age -- older generations were taught that they should expect to attenuate their desires to accommodate the world around them; nowadays the world is expected to accommodate every last tiny minority, with no thought for everyone else.
I come from a family of 9 kids. My parents, though very loving and amazing role models, never endeavored to be our friends. But as an adult my mom was definitely one of my best friends. Miss her every day.
I remember the moment at about age 35 when I told my mother “I think of you and Dad as older friends of mine.” She said “I’ve been waiting for this moment for years.”
Yes!!! My children learned “restaurant manners” very early in life. I was always surprised by the fact that people so often complimented me on how well behaved they were, and I wondered why other people let their kids run around in restaurants like a bunch of little savages. My kids would always look at those children in complete horror.
To me the trick is being the parent first and foremost. Friendship can definitely happen, especially as the kids become adults. I am friends with my parents today...but I was not as a child.
I am particularly close with my 23yo daughter, who has just left home to live in Japan.
I was, sadly, not at all close to my mother, so I made special effort to engage with my daughter of her terms.
One of the blessings of COVID was that she stayed at home during university, which she did part time. During those few years we became friends because I no longer had to parent her. I will really miss her now she has gone.
I used to feel immensely pleased whenever I was told (mainly by my daughter) that I was the meanest mom in the world. I knew in those moments that I was actually being a good parent.
100% - my parents were always the authority figures and there was never any doubt of that. There was also no doubt regarding how fiercely they loved us. But we respected them because they could and would punish us for breaking the rules. My husband and I were unable to have children but I always knew that if I had kids, I would raised them the way my parents raised me and my brother.
I live in Oregon where we legalized hard drugs and now have a “drug crisis.” Last month a state legislative committee invited various “experts” to come and share what they know. I’ve noticed that in this state when a subject is related to the social sciences, many of the experts are female.
For the first three hours of this four-hour meeting, all the experts were female. There is no more “Wait ’til your father gets home.” It’s all about wiping noses and tying shoelaces. That could sum up Oregon’s approach to dismantling its criminal justice system — and might have something to do with our “drug crisis.”
Our legislature needs to hear from an expert like David Sedaris. Instead, the chair of the state Senate Committee on Human Services is a fan of Paris Hilton.
Unfortunately, the population VOTED for them! This is a reflection of the power of media to influence people. But, as my philosophy intones, "People are stupid and usually vote for people and things that are contrary to their own self-interests, because it FEELS GOOD!"
Ima fellow Oregonian, young man who endured Beaverton school district stupidity growing up in the 2010s. The overwhelming sense that I get in this state is that its a matriarchy at the political level and in some industries as well. And as far as making the idea of a “matriarchy” look like an attractive alternative to “the evil patriarchy” theyre doing a piss poor job. They went from Kate Brown who had the vibe of a shallow, scolding, leftist librarian- to Tina Kotek, who is even more of a shallow, scolding, leftist librarian who just looks somewhat more lesbian. I love my state but the leadership is devoid of any leadership.
Both my mother and grandmother, as well as my spouse’s mother, were strong, formidable women. “Matriarchy” doesn’t necessarily mean weakness. The feminization of education and politics seems to rely on the STEREOTYPICAL definition of women as soft, sweet, nurturing pushovers. The same sort of clichés relied upon to justify gender theory. That’s the fashion today. But there are plenty of women who are strong leaders: think Margaret Thatcher, or Golda Meir.
I do not think it implies weakness at all. But I do think women in general tend to be more about what should be than what is. So you wind up with criminal justice reform that creates a drug crisis.
I suspect, that ideally, you want a mix of Feminine and Masculine. Right now, we have too much stuff being pushed mostly by the Feminine side. And you don't want too much of either side. Nature and our Creator gave us both sides for a reason.
It is a beautiful place. And I am.heartened by your comment. There was for awhile a notion that Democrats were matriarchal and Republicans were patriarchal. We all need for Dadfy to get home soon.
“The Sentence of Certain Doom” Even worse when Dad was away and we had DAYS of dreading his return…
Poor Dads, everywhere - can you imagine having a grueling week living out of a suitcase, finally crossing the threshold to your own little piece of heaven on earth, only to be greeted by your soulmate saying, “Do you know what your son did while you were away???”
This was a big one for me. Mom was a teacher so we saw her all the time. So we got used to her getting upset when we screwed up. But if it was bad enough to bug dad about, we knew we crossed a line.
So funny to me because I’m my family, my mother was the disciplinarian. I “waited for Dad to get home” because he was the one who would take me in his lap for comfort and cuddles and all the emotional nurturing I never got from my mom.
It is amazing that they legalized all drugs and are now shocked that people are using them. What did they think would happen? If you allow people to do anything and everything they want, they will.
Mom used to say, "This is not a democracy; it is a benevolent dictatorship." She was more of a yeller than a hitter, but I do remember the feel of her slipper with its rubber sole reaching the back of my bare legs as I ran away.
We weren’t allowed to slam doors, say ‘tsk’ in that eye-rolling way or refer to my mother as ‘her’. It was proper pronouns always. I’m alive and well-she was the best mom.
If I had a dollar for every time I heard don't you roll your eyes at me. She only slapped me once and I will never forget the look.om her face. I probably deserved it because I have a mouth. But looking back I think she and my Dad probably decided they were not going to raise their children that way. Personally I would have preferred a spanking to that talking to. But I learned a lot. Best parents ever.
I was raised by my grandmother, and we could get smacked if we didn’t clearly articulate the ‘d’ in grandmother. And telling anyone to “shut up,” even another sibling, was grounds for a spanking..
My brother, sister and I used to go spend a week at my grandmothers' house in the summer. She would make us go play outside(which we loved to do anyway) and would lock the doors so she could watch her "stories." She also used switches. (I was an obedient child so I don't think I got switched but my brother sure did) 😃 We loved our grandmother so much!!!
Haha, my Mom (family of 5 kids) most often used the ol’ wooden spoon. She also used the orange Hot Wheel plastic racetrack. You kids of a certain age know what I’m talking about. If I was a sh*t, I’d get that one in the calves cause I was usually running from it ;)
Ha. I totally understand the plastic racetrack. Our Dad used a belt and my brother was usually the one running from it 😃 I still remember the sound of him removing it and my brother running and yelling, "No,,noo, I'm sorrrryyyyy!!!" Once my brother was chasing me in the house and I stubbed my pinky toe on a brick column. It really hurt but I dramatically fell to the ground crying and wailing. I heard that belt coming off...ha. I actually cracked a bone in the toe...no big deal but I remember walking around limping dramatically so my brother would feel such guilt and shame. ha. I love talking about this stuff😂
Hahahaha…. I just pulled that line out myself…jokingly saying it to a pickleball opponent…we all love it… playground survival tactics! Disclosure: yeah I’m > 60. & resilient!
Our child and most of our friends' children just got a good laugh when they said that and whatever discipline or "no" that was going on continued. I remember when our son was around 4-5 when his older cousins (teenagers) told him "no" about getting some soda or something and he started to cry. They just laughed at him and it became a family joke. Kids go through development phrases. When our kid was 20 he left school and decided he was going to save money and travel (to Europe for 3 months). Some of our friends asked my wife "are you going to allow that?" We just kinda of looked at them befuddled...............no we were proud of him for his independence (we weren't funding it) and it was the best thing he has done for himself. The essay was comedy..............not meant to describe an entire generation.............and I found it funny. By the way, the children of the wealthy have always been spoiled..............and this is where that behavior seems to be centered (Brown, Dartmouth, Princeton, Stanford, etc.) FYI no spanking or slapping needed to parent a decent human being.
Depends on the kid my husband represented a minor that had been removed from.his single parent, his father,.in New Mexico because the father use corporal punishment. Apparently the boy was a handful and the father said if you will not allow me to parent him.as I think best then you take him. So the State of New Mexico did. He went through a series of foster placements where he was a handful. So the State of New Mexico sent him to the Btown School in Texas. Shortly after arrival he left campus and hid in a garage nearby. When the homeowner came home the boy beat him.nearly to death with one of his own golf clubs. The homeowner suffered severe, befitting, lifelong injuries. To the pount where there are things worse than dying debilitating.
With a story like that I would like to know the full history of the father/son. Unless a kid has mental issues it is hard for me to see how he jumps to nearly beating someone to death unless there were previous years where his upbringing severely failed him.
Corporal punishment in and of itself is not parenting, its just hitting someone after they do a thing you don't like. Assuming this kid didn't have built in mental health problems, somewhere along the line he learned that he can get away with doing what he wants.
It was not a jump. He had a long history by the time he beat the poor man with a golf club. I do not recall any significant mental issues and he had competent representation which would require analysis thereof. What if he was a tough, physical kid who would have benefitted from physical discipline? I really do not understand the pearl clutching at even the possibility. In the absence thereof though the state in its infinite wisdom, did not treat him, rehabilitate him, or deter him. His father might have and was crimalized for it. And an innocent man is brain damaged. Kids need to umderstand before the age of majority that there is something bigger than them in this world. None of this is to say that child abuse is okay, or that methods other than corporal punishment should not be considered first, or counseling provided (although I am dubious about forced medication). But there is no universal right way and to pretend there is is IMO foolish. And do you have any idea how discipline is maintained in group homes? I assure you it is far worse than what the father we are discussing contemplated. And the people meting it out are justified in doing so by law.
Consequences! If your actions have no consequences, you have no responsibility. If you are not responsible, you have no worth. Some of these youngsters are simply worthless.
The sad part is, many of them desperately WANT to have worth. They were just taught that worth comes from the wrong places...which is why so many of them are unhappy. They keep doing the things that they were told will give them self value but it isn't actually working.
Oh my goodness how BRILLIANT! I’d like to share a story. My son, at the age of maybe one year, was rolling around in his little wheeled walker, and started pulling on one of our heavy mahogany bar stools. I told him, forcefully, “NO” and pulled him away. My husband asked why I would scold him as he was too young to understand the word “no”. I told him, “well, he need to learn early what it means and now is as good a time as any.”
They’re never too young to be hit too. When they’re really little what might be a slap for a bigger child is whole body discipline for a baby. Message received, am I right?
Why not slaps on the face? They're very memorable and isn't that the point? Look at all the people here with warm memories of being slapped by Mom and Dad years, even decades, later. A slap on the face leaves an impression, figuratively and literally, and the harder the slap the bigger the impression! I say, use your advantage. Adults are bigger than children so go with slapping and the like. For that matter, a mouthy wife can usually be quickly dispatched the same way....
As I said, not my method. If it’s for being sassy, I have twice used a bar of soap. Just as memorable and just as effective lol. A slap on the face feels disrespectful to my mind and I can accomplish the same thing using other methods. And as an aside, slapping a wife in the face falls under spousal abuse in my book, although you may have been saying that tongue in cheek.
I hope you made the kid eat the bar of soap. He wouldn't do whatever he did again, guaranteed! Never do anything halfway, I say. As for wives, yes! And co-workers who get out of line, dogs who shit where they're not supposed to or don't come to you right away. Enough coddling. What this country needs is a little--or a lot of--frontier justice!
I don't know what happened to you personally or what you have observed in your professional life but it has absolutely warped your ability to engage in reasoned discussion.
When we went into a store, my step-mother would tell me to put my hands in my pockets and keep them there until we left. If I had picked up any object, even God couldn't have helped me.
I have an interesting anecdote on this very subject:
A couple of months ago, I was in South Africa with my wife who's from there. She tracked down an old friend who is currently an elementary school teacher at a public school of limited means. It'd probably be considered impoverished by US standards. I accompanied my wife while she briefly met her friend to say hello. We stepped into the classroom, which was in session. Being the eve of a holiday, the ten year-old students were quietly engaged in light activity, perhaps an art project; our disruption was not unwelcome. Upon entering, the teacher instructed her class to greet us. They arose in unison and very politely recited, "Good morning, Mr and Mrs Makous! Welcome to our school." I was instantly tickled and heartened that children could be so well behaved. This, evidently, was in stark contrast to the situation widespread in many US schools, as DS so wittily describes.
Let me add South Africa to Japan as a model where discipline and manners still prevail.
When my oldest was about 6 yrs old (college aged now) we ran into an old family friend - an elderly gentlemen. My child was very polite when interacting with him. The gentleman then said “You know, it used to be the kids with bad manners stuck out, now the kids with good manners do.” A sad but true statement for sure.
So what's happening there, then? Hunting white farmers, hanging tires filled with gasoline around their necks ("necklacing") and setting them on fire, raping and murdering their families seems a bit unmannerly somehow....
Perhaps the students you saw were not part of the current, er... "ruling class."
Now that customer service has become an international business, I have found myself delighted when the person who answers the phone is on South Africa. Always the best, most helpful service.
Good to hear. I wonder at myself that I now see my Catholic grade schooling in a positive light. Five or ten years ago, this idea was personally unthinkable. Compared to the ill-conceived practice in many public school jurisdictions that discipline, manners, and actual learning are "racist", a "sign of privilege", or "colonial", Catholic schools and others as you've noted, are a gem.
David, you are amazing. And I think I can say this because you just nailed this. But if that cure for herpes isn’t out by next Monday, I’m going to have to edit this comment and it won’t be pretty!!!
Bad behavior in children is almost always the result of bad parenting. Bad parenting festers because it is often tolerated by others in the presence of said behavior. If a child is running around a restaurant and the manager refuses to take steps to put a stop to it then it is entirely within the rights of the irritated to get up and leave. If you decline to do this when the manager takes no action after you’ve asked for it to stop then you became a party to tolerating the child’s behavior. One problem with society today is that there is too much “cost shifting”: The “guilty” end up going cost free because the innocent are willing to pay it rather than put up a fuss. Next time cause a scene.
Or….. you could do what my husband did the other day at Walmart when a man was melting down over the self service checkout and yelling and acting like a spoiled child. He merely said, stop it and shut up and the guy did. Course it helps when you’re 6’4” 230. But still, we let people get away with so much.
Children now are like animals who have no natural predators left.
There it is at last! The one sentence I have been seeking in my head to describe the Trophy-gathering Generation more succinctly!
Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.
Thomas Sowell
Too late...
Sowell is usually right, but not on this one. He presumes the existence of civilization.
I think in this particular case you could replace "civilization" with "basic manners and recognition of the rights of others" it would mean about the same thing.
Only they’re not being civilized of course
I agree, of course, at least in far too many cases. I know good kids. I know of a lot more kids whose main concerns are their addictions to screens and to always getting their own way no matter what, and no matter the cost to others, who by and large they lack the empathetic capacity even to see.
My strong temptation is to view failing to meet basic developmental milestones on a mass scale as an uncorrectable problem, but the truth is we don't know what is possible. But what IS possible, if it is to be positive and redemptive, needs to originate on a foundation of general recognition that there is in fact a large problem. Until that happens, things will unquestionably continue to get worse.
To that end, I think pieces like this are helpful. I have put a lot of thought into all this, but am going to resist sharing more at this point.
Thanks for a thoughtful reply! I do hope for correction and redemption, and I agree it’s absolutely vital for recognition to take place before change can happen. This was a great piece by a respected writer and humorist. I’m thankful for it!
This was a spit-out-the-coffee moment this morning. Cheers!
I loved that point as well. The blue children need to proverbially get spanked by society. Then a return to normalcy can begin to happen.
“Children” = anyone under 40 😂
Maybe not. Prisons are expensive and the 'socialization' people get in them almost guarantees they'll be criminals for life. How about caning? Vandals, say, get six strokes and that's that -- no prison, no criminal record, no ... nothing. Just the discipline they never got elsewhere. They say that vandalism is next to nonexistent in Singapore and that's because they cane vandals.
I once met a high level government official from Singapore at a dinner, where he proudly and matter of factly told me they hang drug distributors on Fridays. I have been to Singapore several times. One of the safest and cleanest cities in the world.
I'm not the only one, and they do say he was not absolutely sinless, but I worship Lee, he had a common sense that is now almost impossible in a Western man. And he achieved the miracle of a genuinely multicultural city. The only other people to pull that off are the Swiss.
I'd say that NYC was a fair approximation. For a while.
"Children now are like animals who have no natural predators left."
My Granny (1862-1958 A Great Woman. One did not suffer fools well, or for long.) Said something similar "Children now are like animals, you have to train them"
Imagine a member of the generation Sedaris is referring to reading this entire piece, never mind that sentence. Could they make it to the end without throwing up, covered by the violence of their vomit? Oh the horror! The macroagression! Would they delete the Free Press from their bookmarks?
By the way my favorite line, apart from your good example is:
'The solution isn’t for every couple to start having five kids again, but maybe for one chosen couple to have five, and the other four couples to go without—either have a full litter you can’t pay that much attention to, or nothing at all.'
They would not read a whole sentence because periods are excessively and unnecessarily aggressive.
I've heard they have issues with semicolons as well. Apparently it's abusive to a body part.
;;;;; ;)
Nothing at all?
Horrors...That would leave us with the bozos we have without ANY hope of achieving something different!
I burst out laughing at that one. Brilliant!
That was the one line I had to read out loud to my wife before forwarding the link. So brilliantly succinct.
Exactly the one! Grateful for the laugh this morning, and oh boy a recognition of my own childhood.
I don't find David Sidaris that funny...Never have...never will.
I'm sorry for your loss (sincerely!)
What about David Sedaris?
Tell us why you dislike David, L.K., I’m looking for a reason to slug you
If you haven't had a bunch of fights before you're 18 - and more important, lost your fair share - chances are you going to be like the whiny useless little shites described here.
My son (now 28) was attending a nice private school, but being harassed by a bully in his year. Despite my son's prowess with logic and reasoning, he could not persuade the boy to desist. Eventually, when cornered one day, my son gave him a swift right hook. The boy fell to the ground, with only his pride hurt. He never gave my son a hard time again over the next 6 years of school.
Sometimes getting physical is the only language that will convey the message.
While I do wish I had a bit more friction as a youth when it comes to physicality, no one I grew up with got in any fights. They occurred almost exclusively between the 'trouble kids'.
I would argue that if you are getting in enough fights to be losing your fair share, maybe you shouldn't do so many things that lead to violence.
You would be wrong. Kids fight for a lot of reasons. And losing to a bigger, stronger opponent is no shame if you're fighting for something worthwhile. Even in adulthood I had a few fights and no losses. So far. But I'd rather lose a fight than suffer the humiliation of not fighting for something right.
I guess my point was based on my limited experience with fights in school. They never seemed to be about something important. It was more of an Honor cultural fight because someone felt slighted or just disliked someone.
But, perhaps my point is more about the lack of nuance in your statement. You apparently come from a world where beating people up is a regular form of resolving disputes. That is not the case for everyone. My parents would have punished the crap out of me if I was getting into fights with any kind of regularity. The first one I might have gotten away with if I were defending myself or someone else. But the second would have started bringing into question why I kept finding violence as the solution to problems.
It might have been the time. I grew up in the 50s and early 60s. We settled things with our fists; not kicking or knives or guns. So few people got badly beaten. And if fact, many of the guys I fought became close friends. A bond of mutual respect. In my adult life, I've had a few. But of a different variety. My then gf and I were attacked on street in Buffalo and I had no choice. Similarly, when my two then young sons were threatened. But perhaps a life spent playing competitive contact sports reduced my inhibitions. My point, however, remains unchanged. There are some things worth fighting for no matter the consequences. As to honor, insults don't need to be settled with violence. Better to walk away. But if you walk away when someone weak is being harmed, there is no honor in that.
Bare knuckle punching on humans as can hurt the aggressor just as much as the target if done with too much force and a lack of technique. There’s a reason why boxing gloves were invented.
My fights were over girls, and not my choosing. But when attacked w/ fists one must defend w/ same, and so I did…
Yes! It hit me the same way!
There are plenty of child predators. Nor are children bad for the environment.
So now giving birth incites violence😂
There was a day when, if a young man of 18 or so was standing before a judge, he was offered a choice. "Son, you have a choice, you can go to jail or you can join the Marines." Most chose the Marines.
And it made a man of them!
I think you need to be able to read to join the Marines.
Today you do, I don't know if that was the case when judges were able to do that. The policy allowing judges to make that offer ended sometime in the 1970's or 60's.
The Marines don't play that game anymore. Maybe they should though.
I think it was Mark Twain who said, “Beat your children once a day. If you don’t know what for, they will.”
But seriously in my 12 yrs of education by nuns, never was a child struck. The nuns had a much better weapon. Shame. There is no worse punishment than having to stand before your 49 other classmates and confess what you did, have the nun shame you, then call your Mom so you could go home and admit to shaming your family. You never make that mistake again. And you develop a conscience. I don’t think kids are taught to have consciences anymore. They are never wrong, it’s always someone else’s fault, it’s Unfair!!
A sense of shame - that moderating force - has been excused and excised out of society. Every impulse, no matter how uncivilized, is celebrated while shame is condemned. For many, it is no longer part of the human psyche. The results are predictable.
This is the entire point of Queer (and the TAIN2S that belong to it). It is to bring to center those aspects of human behavior considered obscene, perverse and reprehensible.
Remember that the next time someone claims to be “Queer” simply so they can feel like they belong to a club.
You do realize that Bari and Nellie are married lesbians who, according to you, sin on a daily basis. I’m pretty sure they celebrate it. They don’t want a hug. They want some respect. Gay people are born that way. It’s genetic. They’re not “sinning”.
Hugs are respect in the form of love and compassion.
Not if the message is that “ humanity as a whole has a sin problem, but you don’t have to deny it or even worse celebrate it to live a fulfilling life.” In other words, “we all sin in one way or another and I love you even though your sin is gay sex, which you should not deny is a sin, and you certainly shouldn’t celebrate it in a PRIDE parade.”
The RC a church, of which I am a lapsed member, now says with regard to gay people that we should “love the sinner but hate the sin.” That’s about as disrespectful as you can get, imho.
David Sedaris, the author of this brilliant essay, is also gay. I count him as a national treasure. If you’ve never read any of his books highly recommend them.
“… they aren’t alone; and humanity as a whole has a sin problem, but you don’t have to deny it or even worse celebrate it to live a fulfilling life.”
There’s no other way to interpret this statement than that gay people are “sinning” and not only denying that they are sinning, but celebrating it through PRIDE marches, etc. You know they’re not using the word “pride” as the meaning of the sin of pride, they’re using it to show that they’re not ashamed of being gay or hiding “in the closet” because society disapproves of them. They are “out and proud”, no longer hiding but rather fully living their lives.
And not only can genetics “not be changed by a flip of the switch”, genetics cannot be changed. Period. Gay people fall in love with each other and express that love physically, just like straight people do. Promiscuous sex is a sin for straight and gay alike. But loving sex in a committed relationship or marriage is beautiful for gay and straight alike. Why should these human beings that God made as they are be denied something the rest of us are blessed with?
Fwiw, my son is gay and he is a blessing. Without him, I would not have grown to understand this uniqueness that God has made. My son is still single at the age of 33 and I pray daily for him to find a man he can spend his life with in a loving, committed relationship and eventual marriage. He’s a beautiful human being and I am PROUD of him. He has two masters degrees, speaks 3 languages, and teaches ESL. He leads an exemplary life. His first cousin, my niece, is also gay. Genetics. Runs in the family. In my family, my uncle’s brother was gay, and his granddaughter is a lesbian. Genetics. My best friend’s brother was gay and her nephew is gay. Genetics.
You cannot change these people and they don’t change. They have learned not to hate themselves and instead take pride in their unique existence. They are not sinners. David Sedaris, the author of today’s TFP essay is gay and married to another gay man. They have every right to celebrate their existence which has been demonized for way too long.
Thank you for being concerned that you may have offended me. I’m certain you didn’t mean to. But it’s Thanksgiving day and I am thankful for my gay son, and my gay relatives and for all the gay young people I have met because they have taught me to be a more open and accepting human being. No one has the right to judge these people, especially not a church or a religion.
While my mother was of the “spare the rod spoil the child” era, and my brother and I had our share of spankings or whippings with a paddle, the worst thing she could do to me was sit me down on the bed and tell me how much she was hurt by what I did, said, did not do, or did not say. That created a hole in my heart and hurt much more than physical punishment.
Yes - I got some spankings but my wonderful, loving mom expressing her "disappointment" in me very occasionally was crushing.
My children (aged 23 - 28) all agree that the look of "disappointment" was much worse that the occasional spanking I handed out.
Our squad leaders during Plebe summer at West Point did the same thing. If you screwed up, you didn't get in trouble, your whole squad got in trouble for not squaring you away. Most learned the lesson because they couldn't take the shame and ire from their squad mates.
I disagree. Shame is still huge. It is what Cancel Culture is based on. They have just changed what is appropriate shame material. Oppressors should fee shame for just existing, oppressed can do literally anything they want.
Too true free speech only works one way with the progressives
"You can't shame or humiliate modern celebrities. What used to be called shame and humiliation is now called publicity. And forget traditional character assassination. If you say a modern celebrity is an adulterer, a pervert, and a drug addict, all it means is that you've read his autobiography." P.J. O'Rourke, Give War a Chance, A Call for a New McCarthyism, 1992.
Since everyone on Instagram and TikTok considers themselves a celebrity, you can now just substitute "people" where it says "celebrities."
Brene Brown has a lot to answer for
The sad part is, the answers have been found, and practiced by some for decades. But we don't teach them broadly.
Step 1 - meet the child with empathy - your feelings are a real, natural human reaction that are totally understandable
Step 2 - regardless of your feelings, this is how we expect you to behave when you have them.
Step 3 - logical consequences if you choose otherwise
Society naturally affords choices, but has boundaries and logical consequences. Show your kids respect and prepare them for the world as independent citizens by providing them with those as well.
Some Politicians are an example.....
And yet, they get elected President anyway.
I grew up in a Chinese household. The most damning insult you could be subject to, was being declared so clueless, that you didn’t know you should be ashamed of your behavior.
That was prior to 8 years of Catholic school!
Great comment. Those Catholics know how to induce shame really well. I went to Catholic schools through college LOL
Yes, and one nun per 50 kids in a classroom. She kept order and we got a great education.
Catholic nuns, the most fearsome creatures outside of captivity! I did 12 years of Catholic schools, and I am a better person because of it!
In the second grade the nun grabbed me by my ponytail and banged me against the blackboard, for talking out of turn in class.
My mother’s reaction you ask? She took me to the barber shop and had him give me a pixie cut!
I lived through it, and it didn’t stop me from talking in class.
Also went to Catholic school 12 years - and then taught in Catholic school 12 years. I have to say that every nun I had as a teacher was an excellent educator and lovely human being. They were entirely devoted to teaching. Wish my kids had some nuns as teachers.
I was impressed by how the nuns handled bullies back in the day. No problem at all. They were dragged into the principal’s office and, after a bit of shaming, made to apologize. Now a beefy 40 year old principal can’t seem to handle a twelve year old bully. I have seen it with my own eyes. They actually frequently advise the bullied kid—the victim—to change schools.
Have you ever read The Last Catholic in America, followed by Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect up followed by The Unoriginal Sinner and the Ice Cream God.
Catholic school in elementary, high school and college.
If you never went to Catholic school, you’d never get it.
There was a one person play in Chicago called, “Midnight Catechism”. One nun in a classroom, monologue. Absolutely hilarious, at least to all the Catholics.
The late Dave Allen told truly wonderful yarns about growing up Catholic which explained many of the curiosities to our Protestant cousins.
I believe the author went to St. Christina for grade school, and 99% sure he went to Brother Rice for H.S.
A true son of Chicago’s South Side.
In Twain's "Tom Sawyer," Aunt Polly cuffs Tom about the ears for some offence - stealing sugar from the sugar-bowl, I think - and he tells her that it wasn't he; it was his cousin Sid.
"Well, you're not a lick a-miss," she responds, and goes on about her business.... classic stuff.
You are so right. When I was 5 or 6, I took some bubble gum from the display at the grocery checkout. Mom saw me chewing gum, and marched me back to the store. I had to apologize to the cashier and the manager, and of course we paid for the gum.
I don’t have a lot of memories of being 6 yrs old, 60 years later, but I never forgot the shame I felt that day.
Ditto. Never stole another thing either.
I, too, suffered from twelve years of priests & penguins. I never saw them touch anyone either, but somehow you felt guilty for breathing air that could better have been used by someone else. I'm still a Recovering Catholic. I have six siblings, and had parents who never read to or sang to us either. Not much slapping, but a whole lot of ignoring. We all grew up to be fine, decent people who managed to hold down jobs and raise average kids. We even like each other!
I never went to Catholic school, but my siblings did. I always thought that measuring instrument they wrapped your knuckles with was the “golden ruler...”
Sometimes the nuns take it too far. My former wife was made to remove her blouse, and stand in front of the class in her bra, while she confessed her "sin."
The nun who made a child remove her blouse was both a sadist and pervert.
Of course there were some deplorable episodes in the schools but by and large a highly positive experience and preparation for real life. We should be learning that incessant indulgence and tolerance of nonsense propaganda in the secular schools has a tremendous negative impact on society. We ain’t seen nothing yet.
I seriously doubt anyone here would think that’s going too far. They clearly believe that humiliating children is not only very good for them but hilarious.
" A mother ushered her child, aged seven or so, through the door as I passed. I walked for another five minutes before turning back, surprised to see that the school bus hadn’t moved in the time I’d been gone. Rather it was where I had left it, the mother still at the door, mewing, over the sound of her crying child, “Well, Atticus, honey, where do you want to sit?”
So the bus driver and all these kids had to wait until this one woman’s son was happy with his seat? "
Disciplining this child, and mother, would have been hilarious!
The bus driver should have driven off and let the mother get her child to school.
he definitely should have. but unfortunately, the mother would have gotten the school bus driver fired. and he probably drives two hours a day, each way, from where he can afford to live, to drive that bus, for pittance. :(
Discipline? That doesn’t send a message. Drop kicking the kid off the bus and into his mother so she falls over with him on top of her, THAT sends a message (and would be hilarious to boot).
Discipline or not it absolutely sends a message - that Atticus is not the only person of significance in the scenario. It is a valuable lesson - that in public there are standards for acceptable behavior and that community requires adherence thereto. And holding up an entire bus is not acceptable. If he cannot get on the bus, take him home. This is not a difficult concept.
Well done Megan!
Right? Extra points for drawing blood from both parasites. Kids bleed A LOT, lol!
She didn't seem to have been traumatized, and maintained her faith in the Catholic religion. Things did get a bit messy when she married me, a Jew. Her next marriage was to a Mormon. I lost touch with her after that. My current wife is a Buddhist and Buddhists are tolerant of all religions. Or at least until one of their own leaves the religion.
I am a Jew because my mother was Jewish. I never knew anything about the religion until I became a Christian and read the old testament. After 18 yrs. in Evangelical Christian churches, I left because I couldn't believe all those stories in the Bible. The words of Jesus ring true as they are the words of the Buddha and others, but I can't follow the religion. Paul, in particular annoys me. He's a real hard ass. I can relate to John and there's no way, Peter, an uneducated fisherman, could have written those letters. The stories about Jesus, to me, are just that, stories. These days , I don't feel like I have to belong to any religion and if I was going to be anything, I'd be a Taoist. The person who brings me closest to thinking about God, is the Persian Sufi poet, Hafiz.
I think you may be wrong about Paul. Some are gifted, with or without education.
Freedom from shame - in Book VIII of Plato’s “Republic” he blames the end of democracy on the relentless pursuit of freedom well beyond reason … and perhaps beyond shame as well.
Huh. I was educated by Irish nuns from 1st through 8th grade. Now anytime I hear an Irish brogue, I’m certain that someone is about to smack me with a ruler.
Catholic school also taught me to fear and hate organized religion, a gift for which I am forever grateful...
This!!!!
We went to church each Sunday. It was probably the early 80’s and we were old enough to sit with our friends. We knew it was so cool to be able to do that 🙄 My brother was in 6th grade..,I’ll always remember it. He was goofing off with his friend and the pastor stopped his sermon and asked someone to go sit with “those boys in the back”. I was so scared because I knew what would happen to him once we got home! 😀
Ok. Happy Thanksgiving!
Maureen, you are so right. Shame is vital.
In order to elicit it, they need to understand they have done something wrong. This would therefore require parents and other adults to establish the difference between right and wrong.
Many are too woke to do so, hence a generation of shameless, whiny brats.
Yes!
Oof. This. I once had a client who had cheated on her husband with another woman. Had gone on to date another woman, marry her, and continued to stalk her ex-husband on social media and hide it from her current spouse. When I asked her (in relation to fairly obvious guilt and shame she was feeling/expressing) how she reconciled it with her conscience—in fact, any of her actions— she replied that she often ignored it and didn’t really listen to it because it made her feel uncomfortable. She terminated shortly after that because she got a dosage of antidepressants that finally made her feel better. Do with that as you will.
B S growing up in a Protestant Church is when I came to realize my mother had an arm that could stretch & reach past 6 kids to pinch me for whispering!
Three kids in our family, much jockeying entering church so we wouldn't be the one who had to sit next to my dad. No corporal punishment, my parents disciplined with "the look."
To call my aunt Mattie a ball-o-fire was to seriously understate the issue. Her husband had lost his right arm - the whole arm - when it was literally yanked out of the socket in a 1930s mining accident. Back then, before the union was a thing, a one-armed miner was no longer useful and lost his job immediately. There were no jobs for women, but she and her husband, growing and selling produce, honey and living frugally, managed to send three boys to medical school and one into dentistry. Just before his death, Uncle Omer showed his bank book to my older brother: just over one million dollars. "And none of it came from my children: I earned every penny." Indeed he did.
Mattie kept her brains until her late 'nineties; even in her early 'nineties she was still a force of nature. One Thanksgiving she and several helpers had prepared a sumptuous dinner for the entire family - a lovely affair, with close to a dozen in attendance. We laughed and joked, everyone aware and respectful of how hard life had been for Aunt Matt and Uncle Omer and how successful they had been.
Except for one - her now-also elderly daughter, Mary, who soured the festivities several times by repeatedly cutting-off the old matriarch in mid-sentence and once or twice giving her the senile-old-lady-tut-tut and condescending smile.
Aunt Matt was far, far from senile - and not one to tolerate such things. After a final subtle insult from Mary, Aunt Matt slowly rose, walked around the table until she was squarely behind her now seventy-year-old daughter - and slapped her across the face.
... and then the classic line, which we still laugh about at every Thanksgiving dinner: "I'm still your mother, young lady!"
Young lady. Oh I love that. A Thanksgiving to remember.
Wish I'd been there to see it. Just reading this made me smile
When Matt was a young newlywed, she and a sister-in-law had some sort of dispute. The story goes that she chased Jane all the way down the holler to the old homeplace, dragged her out from under the bed and gave her a thorough whipp'in. Like many of the mountain people, hers was an honor culture, and she never backed down. Ever.
I love this!! You are always your parent's child, no matter how old you are. 😁
Yes, and I'm reminded of that every time I get corrected by my father. He's 91.
I correct my young adult children - about their grammar, or their table manners. Even sometimes their opinions.
They know that I do this because I love them, and I don't want them to make fools of themselves in polite company.
Bless you. And your Dad. This made me smile. I know you don't believe but I do. It can't hurt.
GREAT story!!! Thank you! I am always amazed by how some people manage to thrive in spite of adverse conditions. Life lessons that should be taught these days!
There is long life in my family - especially the men. Aunt Mattie's oldest son Bruce, a retired doctor, is still living at 95. I spoke with him a couple of years ago by phone and asked him what he was doing.
"Well, I'm so Goddamned old the local college lets me take courses for free, so I've been taking classes right along."
"What are you taking?"
"Well, I ran out of math classes, so this semester I'm taking C++ programming and Differential Equations."
(My God. DiffEq is tough when you are 23, let alone 93.) "Really. How are you doing?"
Typical laconic response: "Oh, I have A's."
"What do the other students think of you?"
Very matter-of-fact: "Oh, they hate me."
Every time some snowflake cries about his or her hard life, I think of Bruce and his parents and laugh.
Isn't DeffEq math?
"DiffEq" is what the engineering students call it. Differential equations. I took that to mean it was the last math class available at this small college. Not very useful to a nonagenarian, I would suspect....
I never thought the simple truth could make me laugh so hard! Like the author, I remember my mother clobbering me, and my demanding, “What was that for?”, to which my mother replied, “That was for nothing. Now think what’ll happen if you do something!”
Preventative maintenance
Why react when you can preempt?
My mother would say to my brothers, "That was for what you got away with!"
Great Mothers always had a hand ready to set you straight. Wish we had more of them today.
As a mother of ten, including "the skinny, weird one" and "yes, I'm afraid she is," I smiled at this article.
No lost limbs, no felony records.
"No lost limbs, no felony records."
This is what is known as A WIN!
Jeff Foxworthy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuxUqBhEzhw
Unbelievable
Ten? You don't get to count the Cocker Spaniel you know
We had a greyhound for a while. She was the best dog on earth.
Also, few broken bones a lot of stitches and bruises
Surprisingly, we've had only one broken bone - Son A fell off his skateboard at 24 and broke his femur - and one set of stitches, right down the middle of Son F's forehead. (Five siblings were in the room, and nobody saw anything.)
Absolutely. My sister and I. Well mostly me, needed a rope, so I could pull her around in the laundry basket. The rope was too long, so I got a butcher knife and decided that I would cut it. So as I was cutting I realized I was cutting towards myself. Next thing you know I had a knife wound in the middle of my forehead. My first words were shit, I'm in trouble now. My sister, and partner in crime, decided we would hide the knife in the pool table and say I hit the corner of a table. Around twenty years later we were dismantling the pool table and there's the knife. I came clean about what happened and still got a smack on the head. I was in my twenties. Lol.
I called for a Boy Scout to bandage F's face and then took him to the corner clinic. As he sat there with blood slowly oozing, the nurse said, "You're a boy, aren't you!"
Ahh the good old days, where you do something stupid, instead of going home, you ask all your friends Do you think I need stitches. 😆 🤣
Most times, you don't.
I think it’s inconceivable to boomer parents and younger that parents are not their kids’ friends. They are Parents. That means discipline, disappointment, being made to wait, punishment, teaching them they are not number one all the time, and telling they are acting like selfish little jerks. Tough but necessary lessons. I was called a mean Mom many a time. Never bothered me. My parents were way harder.
Our daughter (31 y.o) lamented recently that many of her friends say their Mom is their best friend, and she feels bad that my wife and her are not best friends. My wife told her "I'm your mother. I'm not your friend." Spoken by a women with 7 siblings, married to a man with 8. We know the difference between a Mom and a friend.
Interesting, but decidedly not a hard & fast rule.
I posted once before here of my wife’s and my experience raising five children as young parents. We didn’t overthink it and absolutely didn’t “helicopter.” We punished them for bad grades on report cards, but never checked their homework. And we regularly used the phrase “restaurant behavior” - they all knew precisely what it meant and we declared it in locales other than restaurants as needed to dictate (literally) how they were expected - no, required - to behave.
Anyway, I could go on with examples to illustrate just how much we never, ever tried to be their friends.
But my point is that today at least one daughter regularly refers to my wife as her best friend, two more daughters don’t describe their mother as THE best friend but definitely count her as A best friend, and our two sons talk to her regularly, if not daily. (I would guess they may feel similarly about me, but I’m only writing here of things I’ve heard them say of my wife and I don’t hear what they may say about me.)
And now that I’ve labored to type all that out here on my phone, I’m embarrassed to admit what should’ve been obvious, but wasn’t.
Of course they’re “friends” now, because they can be.
They’re now adults.
Anyway, fantastic essay. Made my morning.
“Restaurant behavior”...I freaking love that!
We spent half of last summer in a smaller city in France (I’m bilingual English/French), and we were astonished (and delighted) by the behavior of French children in restaurants. What was particularly striking was that it wasn’t class dependent -- even very clearly working class families’ kids sat properly at the table, ate what they were served, didn’t have electronics to distract them, didn’t dominate the conversations, and used their “indoor voices”.
On the beach, French kids would tear-ass around, shriek (as children do when playing), build sandcastles, and splash in the waves. Again, electronics were notably absent. So it seemed to be a specific learned behavior for restaurants/museums.
I dearly wish Americans would re-evaluate how their children dominate the space around them, and teach them that OTHER PEOPLE have rights, too! As Sedaris said, “Do the parents know that this is not their house?”. To me, this is a precondition underlying our narcissistic age -- older generations were taught that they should expect to attenuate their desires to accommodate the world around them; nowadays the world is expected to accommodate every last tiny minority, with no thought for everyone else.
I come from a family of 9 kids. My parents, though very loving and amazing role models, never endeavored to be our friends. But as an adult my mom was definitely one of my best friends. Miss her every day.
I remember the moment at about age 35 when I told my mother “I think of you and Dad as older friends of mine.” She said “I’ve been waiting for this moment for years.”
Yes!!! My children learned “restaurant manners” very early in life. I was always surprised by the fact that people so often complimented me on how well behaved they were, and I wondered why other people let their kids run around in restaurants like a bunch of little savages. My kids would always look at those children in complete horror.
To me the trick is being the parent first and foremost. Friendship can definitely happen, especially as the kids become adults. I am friends with my parents today...but I was not as a child.
I am particularly close with my 23yo daughter, who has just left home to live in Japan.
I was, sadly, not at all close to my mother, so I made special effort to engage with my daughter of her terms.
One of the blessings of COVID was that she stayed at home during university, which she did part time. During those few years we became friends because I no longer had to parent her. I will really miss her now she has gone.
I used to feel immensely pleased whenever I was told (mainly by my daughter) that I was the meanest mom in the world. I knew in those moments that I was actually being a good parent.
Whenever I didn’t get to do as I pleased (or as my friends were doing) my mom would simply reply to my objections/argument/whining, “you’re welcome.”
100% - my parents were always the authority figures and there was never any doubt of that. There was also no doubt regarding how fiercely they loved us. But we respected them because they could and would punish us for breaking the rules. My husband and I were unable to have children but I always knew that if I had kids, I would raised them the way my parents raised me and my brother.
I live in Oregon where we legalized hard drugs and now have a “drug crisis.” Last month a state legislative committee invited various “experts” to come and share what they know. I’ve noticed that in this state when a subject is related to the social sciences, many of the experts are female.
For the first three hours of this four-hour meeting, all the experts were female. There is no more “Wait ’til your father gets home.” It’s all about wiping noses and tying shoelaces. That could sum up Oregon’s approach to dismantling its criminal justice system — and might have something to do with our “drug crisis.”
Our legislature needs to hear from an expert like David Sedaris. Instead, the chair of the state Senate Committee on Human Services is a fan of Paris Hilton.
Your legislature needs hard slaps across their faces, all of them.
Unfortunately, the population VOTED for them! This is a reflection of the power of media to influence people. But, as my philosophy intones, "People are stupid and usually vote for people and things that are contrary to their own self-interests, because it FEELS GOOD!"
Good; slap those Oregon voters too. I think we need to send some Texans to Oregon to straighten things out.
Ima fellow Oregonian, young man who endured Beaverton school district stupidity growing up in the 2010s. The overwhelming sense that I get in this state is that its a matriarchy at the political level and in some industries as well. And as far as making the idea of a “matriarchy” look like an attractive alternative to “the evil patriarchy” theyre doing a piss poor job. They went from Kate Brown who had the vibe of a shallow, scolding, leftist librarian- to Tina Kotek, who is even more of a shallow, scolding, leftist librarian who just looks somewhat more lesbian. I love my state but the leadership is devoid of any leadership.
Both my mother and grandmother, as well as my spouse’s mother, were strong, formidable women. “Matriarchy” doesn’t necessarily mean weakness. The feminization of education and politics seems to rely on the STEREOTYPICAL definition of women as soft, sweet, nurturing pushovers. The same sort of clichés relied upon to justify gender theory. That’s the fashion today. But there are plenty of women who are strong leaders: think Margaret Thatcher, or Golda Meir.
I do not think it implies weakness at all. But I do think women in general tend to be more about what should be than what is. So you wind up with criminal justice reform that creates a drug crisis.
I suspect, that ideally, you want a mix of Feminine and Masculine. Right now, we have too much stuff being pushed mostly by the Feminine side. And you don't want too much of either side. Nature and our Creator gave us both sides for a reason.
Well said.
It is a beautiful place. And I am.heartened by your comment. There was for awhile a notion that Democrats were matriarchal and Republicans were patriarchal. We all need for Dadfy to get home soon.
I heard wait til your father gets home more than once
“The Sentence of Certain Doom” Even worse when Dad was away and we had DAYS of dreading his return…
Poor Dads, everywhere - can you imagine having a grueling week living out of a suitcase, finally crossing the threshold to your own little piece of heaven on earth, only to be greeted by your soulmate saying, “Do you know what your son did while you were away???”
This was a big one for me. Mom was a teacher so we saw her all the time. So we got used to her getting upset when we screwed up. But if it was bad enough to bug dad about, we knew we crossed a line.
So funny to me because I’m my family, my mother was the disciplinarian. I “waited for Dad to get home” because he was the one who would take me in his lap for comfort and cuddles and all the emotional nurturing I never got from my mom.
It is amazing that they legalized all drugs and are now shocked that people are using them. What did they think would happen? If you allow people to do anything and everything they want, they will.
You are not the boss of me. Anyone over 60 ever say that to their parents? Or their neighbors for that matter?
Mom used to say, "This is not a democracy; it is a benevolent dictatorship." She was more of a yeller than a hitter, but I do remember the feel of her slipper with its rubber sole reaching the back of my bare legs as I ran away.
Run Away? That would be cause for extra lashes!
Sheesh! It would have been unthinkable. And is there any surprise that narcissism seems to be the dominant cultural trait these days?
Addressing adults by their first names. (One of the GK tried that a few weeks ago. Once. And it didn't even require violence to deliver the message.)
My brother to my Dad, ca. 1971:
“Chick calls his parents by their first names - How come I can’t do that here?”
Dad:
“Because I’m your father, not your friend.”
We weren’t allowed to slam doors, say ‘tsk’ in that eye-rolling way or refer to my mother as ‘her’. It was proper pronouns always. I’m alive and well-she was the best mom.
In the words of Aretha Franklin:
R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Today very little for others and most noticeably no Self Respect.
And in the words of the Staples:
“If you don't respect yourself, Ain't nobody gonna give a good cahoot”
If I had a dollar for every time I heard don't you roll your eyes at me. She only slapped me once and I will never forget the look.om her face. I probably deserved it because I have a mouth. But looking back I think she and my Dad probably decided they were not going to raise their children that way. Personally I would have preferred a spanking to that talking to. But I learned a lot. Best parents ever.
I was raised by my grandmother, and we could get smacked if we didn’t clearly articulate the ‘d’ in grandmother. And telling anyone to “shut up,” even another sibling, was grounds for a spanking..
My brother, sister and I used to go spend a week at my grandmothers' house in the summer. She would make us go play outside(which we loved to do anyway) and would lock the doors so she could watch her "stories." She also used switches. (I was an obedient child so I don't think I got switched but my brother sure did) 😃 We loved our grandmother so much!!!
Haha, my Mom (family of 5 kids) most often used the ol’ wooden spoon. She also used the orange Hot Wheel plastic racetrack. You kids of a certain age know what I’m talking about. If I was a sh*t, I’d get that one in the calves cause I was usually running from it ;)
Ha. I totally understand the plastic racetrack. Our Dad used a belt and my brother was usually the one running from it 😃 I still remember the sound of him removing it and my brother running and yelling, "No,,noo, I'm sorrrryyyyy!!!" Once my brother was chasing me in the house and I stubbed my pinky toe on a brick column. It really hurt but I dramatically fell to the ground crying and wailing. I heard that belt coming off...ha. I actually cracked a bone in the toe...no big deal but I remember walking around limping dramatically so my brother would feel such guilt and shame. ha. I love talking about this stuff😂
I guess the idea of respecting your elders is either gone or on its way out
Hahahaha…. I just pulled that line out myself…jokingly saying it to a pickleball opponent…we all love it… playground survival tactics! Disclosure: yeah I’m > 60. & resilient!
Haha, my Dad would have showed me who's boss, alright.
Our child and most of our friends' children just got a good laugh when they said that and whatever discipline or "no" that was going on continued. I remember when our son was around 4-5 when his older cousins (teenagers) told him "no" about getting some soda or something and he started to cry. They just laughed at him and it became a family joke. Kids go through development phrases. When our kid was 20 he left school and decided he was going to save money and travel (to Europe for 3 months). Some of our friends asked my wife "are you going to allow that?" We just kinda of looked at them befuddled...............no we were proud of him for his independence (we weren't funding it) and it was the best thing he has done for himself. The essay was comedy..............not meant to describe an entire generation.............and I found it funny. By the way, the children of the wealthy have always been spoiled..............and this is where that behavior seems to be centered (Brown, Dartmouth, Princeton, Stanford, etc.) FYI no spanking or slapping needed to parent a decent human being.
I must respectfully disagree: this essay describes several generations. And it's not just wealthy folks and Ivy leaguers, it's prevalent.
Depends on the kid my husband represented a minor that had been removed from.his single parent, his father,.in New Mexico because the father use corporal punishment. Apparently the boy was a handful and the father said if you will not allow me to parent him.as I think best then you take him. So the State of New Mexico did. He went through a series of foster placements where he was a handful. So the State of New Mexico sent him to the Btown School in Texas. Shortly after arrival he left campus and hid in a garage nearby. When the homeowner came home the boy beat him.nearly to death with one of his own golf clubs. The homeowner suffered severe, befitting, lifelong injuries. To the pount where there are things worse than dying debilitating.
With a story like that I would like to know the full history of the father/son. Unless a kid has mental issues it is hard for me to see how he jumps to nearly beating someone to death unless there were previous years where his upbringing severely failed him.
Corporal punishment in and of itself is not parenting, its just hitting someone after they do a thing you don't like. Assuming this kid didn't have built in mental health problems, somewhere along the line he learned that he can get away with doing what he wants.
It was not a jump. He had a long history by the time he beat the poor man with a golf club. I do not recall any significant mental issues and he had competent representation which would require analysis thereof. What if he was a tough, physical kid who would have benefitted from physical discipline? I really do not understand the pearl clutching at even the possibility. In the absence thereof though the state in its infinite wisdom, did not treat him, rehabilitate him, or deter him. His father might have and was crimalized for it. And an innocent man is brain damaged. Kids need to umderstand before the age of majority that there is something bigger than them in this world. None of this is to say that child abuse is okay, or that methods other than corporal punishment should not be considered first, or counseling provided (although I am dubious about forced medication). But there is no universal right way and to pretend there is is IMO foolish. And do you have any idea how discipline is maintained in group homes? I assure you it is far worse than what the father we are discussing contemplated. And the people meting it out are justified in doing so by law.
I wouldn't dare say that to my parents! I said it almost daily to my bossy older sister!😀
Kids are like puppies. They need training! What seems funny when they are little and cute, becomes a major issue when they are full size.
My friend let his kids go free range, two turned out fine, one is in jail. By not training kids, disciplining them, you’re taking a terrible risk.
Consequences! If your actions have no consequences, you have no responsibility. If you are not responsible, you have no worth. Some of these youngsters are simply worthless.
The sad part is, many of them desperately WANT to have worth. They were just taught that worth comes from the wrong places...which is why so many of them are unhappy. They keep doing the things that they were told will give them self value but it isn't actually working.
Oh my goodness how BRILLIANT! I’d like to share a story. My son, at the age of maybe one year, was rolling around in his little wheeled walker, and started pulling on one of our heavy mahogany bar stools. I told him, forcefully, “NO” and pulled him away. My husband asked why I would scold him as he was too young to understand the word “no”. I told him, “well, he need to learn early what it means and now is as good a time as any.”
Even cats can understand an emphatic "no"! Start early- and be consistent!
They’re never too young to be hit too. When they’re really little what might be a slap for a bigger child is whole body discipline for a baby. Message received, am I right?
Well, not really a fan of slaps on the face at all. A surprise swat on the boomy can be highly effective, however.
Why not slaps on the face? They're very memorable and isn't that the point? Look at all the people here with warm memories of being slapped by Mom and Dad years, even decades, later. A slap on the face leaves an impression, figuratively and literally, and the harder the slap the bigger the impression! I say, use your advantage. Adults are bigger than children so go with slapping and the like. For that matter, a mouthy wife can usually be quickly dispatched the same way....
As I said, not my method. If it’s for being sassy, I have twice used a bar of soap. Just as memorable and just as effective lol. A slap on the face feels disrespectful to my mind and I can accomplish the same thing using other methods. And as an aside, slapping a wife in the face falls under spousal abuse in my book, although you may have been saying that tongue in cheek.
I hope you made the kid eat the bar of soap. He wouldn't do whatever he did again, guaranteed! Never do anything halfway, I say. As for wives, yes! And co-workers who get out of line, dogs who shit where they're not supposed to or don't come to you right away. Enough coddling. What this country needs is a little--or a lot of--frontier justice!
I don't know what happened to you personally or what you have observed in your professional life but it has absolutely warped your ability to engage in reasoned discussion.
Thank you very much for hitting the nail on its head. I am still laughing.
Is it any wonder we have runny nose Harvard students spreading evil like the KKK?
Imagine the President of Harvard taking names and expelling all of them forever.
TFP is so precious.
When we went into a store, my step-mother would tell me to put my hands in my pockets and keep them there until we left. If I had picked up any object, even God couldn't have helped me.
Hear! Hear! Spot on commentary.
I have an interesting anecdote on this very subject:
A couple of months ago, I was in South Africa with my wife who's from there. She tracked down an old friend who is currently an elementary school teacher at a public school of limited means. It'd probably be considered impoverished by US standards. I accompanied my wife while she briefly met her friend to say hello. We stepped into the classroom, which was in session. Being the eve of a holiday, the ten year-old students were quietly engaged in light activity, perhaps an art project; our disruption was not unwelcome. Upon entering, the teacher instructed her class to greet us. They arose in unison and very politely recited, "Good morning, Mr and Mrs Makous! Welcome to our school." I was instantly tickled and heartened that children could be so well behaved. This, evidently, was in stark contrast to the situation widespread in many US schools, as DS so wittily describes.
Let me add South Africa to Japan as a model where discipline and manners still prevail.
When my oldest was about 6 yrs old (college aged now) we ran into an old family friend - an elderly gentlemen. My child was very polite when interacting with him. The gentleman then said “You know, it used to be the kids with bad manners stuck out, now the kids with good manners do.” A sad but true statement for sure.
So what's happening there, then? Hunting white farmers, hanging tires filled with gasoline around their necks ("necklacing") and setting them on fire, raping and murdering their families seems a bit unmannerly somehow....
Perhaps the students you saw were not part of the current, er... "ruling class."
Now that customer service has become an international business, I have found myself delighted when the person who answers the phone is on South Africa. Always the best, most helpful service.
If you visit The Cambridge School in Carlsbad CA, you will find similar manners in their students.
Good to hear. I wonder at myself that I now see my Catholic grade schooling in a positive light. Five or ten years ago, this idea was personally unthinkable. Compared to the ill-conceived practice in many public school jurisdictions that discipline, manners, and actual learning are "racist", a "sign of privilege", or "colonial", Catholic schools and others as you've noted, are a gem.
David, you are amazing. And I think I can say this because you just nailed this. But if that cure for herpes isn’t out by next Monday, I’m going to have to edit this comment and it won’t be pretty!!!
Bad behavior in children is almost always the result of bad parenting. Bad parenting festers because it is often tolerated by others in the presence of said behavior. If a child is running around a restaurant and the manager refuses to take steps to put a stop to it then it is entirely within the rights of the irritated to get up and leave. If you decline to do this when the manager takes no action after you’ve asked for it to stop then you became a party to tolerating the child’s behavior. One problem with society today is that there is too much “cost shifting”: The “guilty” end up going cost free because the innocent are willing to pay it rather than put up a fuss. Next time cause a scene.
Or….. you could do what my husband did the other day at Walmart when a man was melting down over the self service checkout and yelling and acting like a spoiled child. He merely said, stop it and shut up and the guy did. Course it helps when you’re 6’4” 230. But still, we let people get away with so much.
And don’t pay