Parenting: POOR PARENTING CAN TEACH GOOD PARENTING

As I was growing up there was one thing my parents tried to practice with me that I vowed never to do to my kids. Raised by authoritarian parents themselves in the early 1900s, they felt entitled to immediate, unquestioning obedience “because I'm your mother,” or “Because I said so,” or “ No back-talk from you, young lady!”  When I was caught smoking at age 14, my chain-smoking father chastised me:”Do as I say, not as I do,” and he meant it. Hmmmm - what’s a kid learn from that?

I have always had a strong need to understand and personalize what I am expected to do and why. This enables me to take full responsibility for my actions. I felt these parental pronouncements to be very disrespectful so they provoked more questions and usually led to arguments, sometimes punishments.

Thus, when my own children got to the “Do I have to?” and “Why?” stage, I was careful to explain my rationale. As a result they usually co-operated. If they resisted, it was usually because they didn't want to do it right then so we would negotiate when it needed to be done. Respecting them as responsible, cooperative beings became self-fulfilling prophesy and reduced power plays and arguments to “when” worked better than pulling rank. My kids also treated me with more respect than I felt toward my parents.
There were reasons why my parents, good people who kept us fed, sheltered, clothed and safe, were poor at parenting - absence and alcohol among them - but my friend Nancy said I was lucky. “At least you had something solid to reject and push away from as you were growing up.  My parents were just there - sort of blah. I just grew up. I had nothing solid from which to launch.” Interesting perspective.


Poor Parenting Can Teach Good Parenting by Abby Freeborn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. For Permission to use contact randmxcentric@gmail.com