The Modern Kid

Exactly when did the whole world get all new age as hell about raising children? What year was this announced?

It certainly wasn't 1970 when I was three years old.

Today in Target, I saw this father pushing his three-year-old in a cart. The kid wasn't getting his way so the kid was standing up in the cart, yelling at the top of his lungs (seen this a million times) and was beating his fists like a windmill into his father's torso (never seen this.) The father's response is to do absolutely nothing.

Apparently, this is the most favored reaction to juvenile explosions. I've read where the new thinking is to not reward a child's tantrum in a public place by ignoring the kid. You're also not supposed to react "violently" because that teaches kid that the way to respond to violence is with violence.

Here's what would have happened in 1970 if john_Clarke went ape shit in Target --- or actually Gibson's Discount Store, there wasn't a Target yet.

A. If my dad was pushing the cart, he'd stop immediately, pull me out of the cart and apply his hand to my tail end. But with my Dad, the look on his face when he's angry was always enough to stop me cold. Dad is not a dude you want to be around when angered

B. Mom would have taken me out of the cart, left the cart in the isle and taken me out of the store. She'd tell me that if I continued acted that way, I would never, ever accompany her into a store again. And she would stick by her word. My Mom always does exactly what she says she'll do.

I am certainly not advocating people wail on their kids. But spanking is not "violence." It has it's time and it's place, and that place and time is when a kid is pummeling his parent in Target.

I can remember the three times my parents ever laid a hand on me. That's all it took. I knew my parents loved me ---- and wanted me to become a decent human being, not a raging asshole.