Today a lady came into work with her young son – he was about 12-13. They were obviously not the richest people in the country, which is fine. She asked about prices and told her son that he was allowed two extras. He then burst into tears – in the middle of the shop – demanding “MORE!” the lady said no, and the screaming got louder, and she said “fine you’ll have nothing then” and the kid screamed LOUDER! At this point I would have stormed away from the child without buying him anything, and grounded him for the rest of life for being a) so embarrassing and b) such a pain in the arse. But no. She caved. She CAVED! So her son ended up with like 5 extras and this poor lady couldn’t afford anything for herself.
Looking down the line a little bit this is going to get worse for the mother – soon it’s going to be “Mum, I need money for grog” said the son,
“No” said mum
“OK, I’ll just go beat the crap out of a sibling and tell kids helpline it was you”
“Fine have your money” caves mum.
I’ve been watching “World’s Strictest Parents” on and off for the last few weeks, and I reckon that it’s partly the parents fault that their children are such brats and no wonder – look at what you are teaching them! Nag and you shall receive.
None of us are perfect and many people seem to be blind when it comes to their kids – but wow. If you can’t see that you are teaching your child such incredibly bad life lessons by caving in to their every demand then you really are missing a few marbles.
The other phenomenon I saw today was that of divorced fathers and their children, mainly girls. The scene would play out like this:
DAUGHTERS run into store tugging on FATHERS hand.
DAUGHTER 1: Please daddddddy can i have this big, enormous one?
FATHER: Sure baby anything to please you seeing as you have to live with your mother 48.27% of the year and this is the last day of the school holidays of which I saw you for exactly 38% of despite the custody agreement between your mother and I which clearly states that i will be able to spend 80- 82% of the holidays with you! Pick as many as you like!
Ice cream is made
ASSISTANT: That will be $50 dollars thanks.
FATHER: Uhuh anything for MY baby! I’m her real father you see, not that guy with my ex-wife who I divorced, not the other way round, I divorced her, she didn’t divorce me, are we clear about that?
ASSISTANT: Thanks for paying my wage with one purchase sir. You have a great day.
FATHER: Huh? Coming darling baby girl for whom I will melt a credit card at any whim!
You see the father is absolutely whipped by the daughter. He has to pay for all the fun things that his baby wants to do and for raising her, and for her education. Isn’t he a wonderful parent? Yeah not really – you see now the mother is portrayed as boring and unable to successfully raise her child on her own. How the mother must feel?
The dynamics of a divorce are strange – especially for the child – in my class almost half of us have divorced parents – and most of them just see it as normal – their parents have always been divorced. This isn’t how it should be! Parents are supposed to stick together. Once upon a time it was together forever, for better or for worse, for richer and poorer etc etc. What has happened to society are we so degraded that we cannot recognise what is good for what is essentially our future?
OK, the point of this: Parents – please, we may scream and whinge, but have some backbone.
Divorced fathers – DO NOT spoil your children, you may have split with their mother, but you still need to be an even handed parent or it’s gonna bit you on the arse one day.
Folks – please before you get divorced. Think of the children!
What do you think folks? Are parents to lenient? Are divorced fathers just making their beds?
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