Sometimes a person may grow up and realize that their parents were indeed quite lacking, and be right in that assessment. I think this other circumstance is important to at least mention because children of objectively lacking parents can have doubts in their mind about their own judgment. In part because of this common trope of teenagers growing up and reflecting that they were foolish and their parents were wiser than they expected, in part because familial norms are so private that it's difficult for one to know what's abnormal for families in a harmful way.
Sometimes, what underlies painful experiences for children aren't parents actually making a wise decision, but plain bad judgment on their part.
Some parents are just really really inadequate or abusive as parents.
They didn't even want to inquire and then decide what was best for their children. Too many parents are given a pass because some sort of "sacred virtue" is assigned to parenting and any mistake that does not include beating their children is somehow forgiven or given a pass.
The "they did the best they could" is a cop-out: did they do the best they could given their laziness, poor impulse control, vision that doesn't go beyond the fence of their backyard?
For example, I was an excellent student, the best in the school, in terms of awards and recognition. Not Einstein, mind you, but someone they should have identified as very talented from a scholastic/intellectual standpoint. My parents never saw this in me, for some reason, because now, I would immediately identify as very talented someone who did as well as I did. My parents never hit me or told me I was stupid or anything like that. They simply acknowledged that I was a good student and that was it. If they had said, this woman is talented, we need to support her, find her mentors, send her to the best universities, I have little doubt that I would have been very successful.
I was successful anyway, after traveling a winding and long road, but my path to professional and financial success could have been (these are my a priori odds) much easier and faster.
Now, you might say, if they had acted differently, maybe you wouldn't be here, etc., which is a very defeatist way of thinking. Their process was wrong and for no other reason than their "intellectual laziness".
I thought the conventional wisdom was that Einstein wasn't academically accomplished until his great works were published.
A lot of your story reminds me of my own but I've reached a different conclusion. Specifically I suspect I would have been accepted into certain magnet schools (pre college) with the sourcing and simple suggestion of taking practice tests. If I had a kid that I suspected would be capable of excelling in that kind of environment that is exactly what I would do to help improve the odds of said kid achieving that goal.
But I don't resent my parents for not bothering to help in this way. I'm honestly not sure why but I suspect it has to do with an unspoken and mutual lack of respect for "academics". The system is so easily gamed, and a gameable system is a flawed one.
Can this not be said for any action, any thought, including, if we are talking about parenting, beating the kids up? "It is the way I was brought up, my father always told me, a few slaps and they'll learn!". "I was feeling so alone and I could not control myself when they were crying, I am so sorry I decided to use the stove gas to put them to sleep, that's what my grandmother used to do!".
My belief is that that kind of "therapist's speech", which as becoming more popular as therapy became the fashionable path for people wanting to make changes in their lives, of "you did your best", "those were the tools that you had available at the time", has caused many to avoid their responsibilities by paying therapists (people who got "second hand smoke" did not even had to pay) like times back they used priest to carry the same function and getting the same result: absolution and comfort.
Some behaviour is just plain borked, but other behaviour is just more nuanced.
An example, some kids are extroverted, others intro. What works for one, may not be the same for another.
You may need to constantly work with an extrovert, so they are eventually, as an adult, be in control of their own exuberance. And with an introvert, work with them, trying to help them expand thier ability to interact.
An ability for both to live in a shared society.
But imagine a parent who was an extrovert, was constantly upset at, as a child, being told to calm down, or stop asking 1000 questions per second. Or even, just "give another a moment to talk".
So they, with an extrovert, do not do such things. And the extrovert does not learn control, and dicipline, and to give others some space sometimes, and becomes less capable of interacting with others as an adult.
Of course, this is a poor example, and poorly phrased, but I hope my point comes across.
We should focus more strongly on what is correct for the child, not how a parent may have misapplied childhood lessons to ourselves. For those lessons may be right for your child, even if not for oneself.
>and have been intentional about not falling into the same behaviors with my kids.
This is usually the problem. You are intentional on NOT falling into THE SAME behaviors, and probably will overreact on the opposite behaviors that is as abusive as the original.
Just because something is bad does not mean that the radically opposite is good.
It is not a good idea focusing on what not to do instead of on what to do.
E.g I have seen parents that were too constrained as kids removing all limits for their children. The kids getting into bad friendships and destroying their lives as a result of the neglect from their parents.
Or someone educated as a Catholic with sexual restrictions promote sexual promiscuity on their children, with very bad outcomes.
I find that whenever you make a decision, you are really sampling from what you’ve already seen.
If haven’t seen a lot, your decision making is really constrained. If you’ve only seen bad decisions, you will make a lot of the same ones. You won’t even know that they’re bad.
The hardest part of life really is figuring out what you don’t know yet. And it’s really, really hard.
My grandfather, partly from trauma and partly from what I believe is hereditary mental illness, swung back the other way, peacing out instead of parenting, leaving my father to get into a lot of trouble as a kid, and witness some different traumatic things.
My father swung back towards being unable to control his anger, and with frequent mood swings between depression and rage. Although, aside from spanking he didn't beat his kids, just pets and walls.
I'm the first generation that has been working towards treating my hereditary mental issues - taking mental health meds, going to counseling. I'm hopeful that I can break the cycle, but enough of a realist to realize I am lacking on a lot of parenting things that I need to learn from outside sources instead.
Put the average child in the position of the average parent and you will see the difference.
Think of how abusive the average parent is, then imagine them trying to parent with 10-20 years less development.
I'm just that in general, the heuristic is accurate that parents have better decision making than their children. The very real counter examples (eg abuse) don't negate the trend.
That said, all parents make bad decisions to the detriment of their children. The severity and frequency is what constitutes abuse vs mistakes.
e.g. If gen 1 only used witty condescending remarks to teach their children that they're dumb, then 2nd gen can realize that this severely damages their kids' self-esteem. If gen 2 recobers from that abuse they may choose the path of taking their kids serioisly even with their shortcomings. The 3rd gen might take some kind of offense in that but there is less of a reason to grow in resentment towards gen 2 while they raise gen 3.
Times change. Subsistence farming doesn't cut it anymore. The lessons learned from that generation are something we have to grow out of.
Some don't. It may be that the parents overcorrect and never teach their kids right/wrong, or it could just be the kid being a problem, or any number of other issues.
My dad spanked me with his hand when I was a toddler. Not overly hard, and not after age 4, but still.
Do I think my dad could have made better parenting choices? Yes. Am I happy that he made substantial advances from what he learned as a kid? Also yes.
A small number of parents are legitimately abusive and should have their kids taken away. Some parents are amazing and talented care givers. Most are just muddling through and fall somewhere in between.
As a parent I am doing my best to keep raising the bar - no corporal punishment over here! But I am sure my children will still find myriad ways in which I have failed them as a parent. Kids don’t come with a manual, and “professional advice” is astoundingly inconsistent/conflicting. I think most parents are doing their best, it is just a hard and poorly understood problem.
This quote also leaves out the second part of their conversation -- the speech's emotional climax -- where Disney tells Travers she needs to forgive herself. This doesn't apply to me. I have nothing to forgive myself for.
https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/21/04/effect-spanking-br...
Most parents are probably bad at parenting, based on the observation that most people are bad at most things and there isn't much in the way of training available compared to the size of the task. But most youths are even worse parents and have wildly misunderstood the constraints, goals and threats involved.
It took me 20 years to undo some of the more direct damage done to me by forcing me into a path I didn't want. Parents being completely wrong for the right reasons is very much a thing.
That doesn't even count psychological damage almost guaranteed to lurk in there pretty much forever
I know that my children will wish I did things differently. Whether that is location, discipline, activities, internet access etc etc. I know they will wish I made more reasoned choices in the moment. That I was never tired, distracted, frustrated. That I let them spend their time as they wished not as I feel is best for them.
Parenting is a parade of tough choices using vague heuristics and life experience. Being well intentioned is a bloody good start.
As a child though, many decisions my parents made were with the view of demonizing outside groups and "protecting" their kids from any contrarian viewpoints. Catching up socially took years, and there are some extreme harms that I still deal with to this day. My goal is to make sure my kids have a well-rounded social life, a consideration for others, and an understanding of a gamut of ideas.
Surely it is easier in hindsight. Nevertheless, there’s this golden rule of “parents should always be forgiven” when if fact it should be “children should not be forced to keep their connection to parents if they don’t want to”.
You, as a parent, are not giving them the “chance to live”, you are bringing them to a world where they probably want to be happy, and if you failed to make them happy they should not be forced to keep you in their life because “a parent gave them the privilege of living”.
Yes parenting is hard. Yes I understand parents make unoptimal decisions all the time. That’s their problem.
Being well intentioned and caring is the bare expected minimum. Why do we need to repeat this?
You are welcome to throw stones if it makes you feel better, but try not to get hit when one flies back through your window in a few years.
No shit sherlock. Here are some more hot takes for you:
- too much screen time is bad
- hitting children is generally counter productive
- feeding a toddler highly processed foods full of sugar is not a good idea
Sorry this conversation frustrates you. Guess you're still dealing with toddlers which is not something I had considered until now. I thought we were talking about much, much older children. Teens even.
It never adds anything meaningful to a discussion. Most often, it’s used by someone with little or no experience with a role or responsibility judging someone who is trying to carry out that role, however imperfectly.
This sadly depends a lot on the community. Being well-intentioned but misinformed in fundamental ways can cause a lot of harm.
[1]: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/heuristics-that-almost...
“If they were right, I’d agree, But it’s them they know, not me.”
Yes.
> (preferences).
No. The parent is supposed to use their best judgment about what is best for the kid given the kid's reasonable long-term preferences [1]--not the parent's preferences. Or, to put it another way, what is best for the actual kid, not what would be best for the parents if they were in the kid's position. The two are often very different.
[1] I say "reasonable long-term preferences" to make it clear that I am not saying parents should indulge a kid's preferences for sugary foods instead of nutritious ones, lots of TV instead of a better mix of intellectual activities, and no exercise. I'm talking about cases where the adult the kid will grow up to be will genuinely say they are different from the parents in this respect and wish their preferences as a kid had been respected.
> Or, to put it another way, what is best for the actual kid, not what would be best for the parents if they were in the kid's position.
Most parents act in the best interest of a kid, not themselves. The outcome varies because parents model of the world usually flawed in many ways and they actually make bad decision thinking they have made good ones. E.g. my friend is obsessed with pre-school development. This is likely because she perceive herself as not smart and wants her son to be smart. She force her son to exercise, he can read and do some math at the age of 3. Long term this is bad for the kid. Unfortunately she cannot realize this. Doing so would require a level of knowledge and self-awareness she does not have. I her eyes she makes perfect decisions.
Why? I was exercising, reading, and doing some (very simple) math at age 3, and I turned out ok.
How did you arrive at this conclusion?
The more I observe the more I understand good parents are exceedingly rare. The vast majority of parents fuck up one way or another. Which shouldn't necessarily be surprising, parenting is very hard!
But I'm not comparing adults with other adults. I'm comparing adults with children. I would be surprised to find a child that was smarter than their parents; it happens, but it's rare.
Put the average child in the position of the average parent and you will see the difference.
Pre-teens don't have practical adult skills and have poor or non-existent emotional regulation. Teens have some adult skills, are learning or experimenting with others, and have patchy self-regulation.
So it makes perfect sense not to allow kids to do things that are dangerous to others, and to limit what teens can do with strong guide rails.
But when it comes to world view and insight, teens can certainly be wiser than their parents. They may not know what to do with their insight, but they're not wrong - just inexperienced.
Meanwhile many adults are hopelessly naive and may be actively self-harming, especially politically and culturally. And when adults have addiction and/or Cluster B issues, even fairly young kids are more likely to be reliable and responsible.
taking insights from teenagers...really? Do you know what kind of "insights" I had in my teenage years? They are downright cringe.
I think that's true in general, but when it comes to making decisions about the child I think that has to be weighted against another heuristic that's often but not always true: that people know what's best for themselves better than other people do. I think people often wrongly neglect that principle when it comes to children assuming that they don't know what they're talking about without taking the time to listen and understand their point.
Up to mid 20's, yes.
> stupid parents are rare
Not even uncommon.
Are you by any chance over 25 but under 40? :)
I think it’s inarguable that experience is valuable, and age correlates very well with experience up to that mid-20s point, but around that point people start to settle into a groove and the extra n years experience is actually just the same year’s experience repeated n times.
As you touched on, the fun twist is when you abstract the learning so it’s not just “I was wrong about X” but “I should be much more accepting of contrarian views.”
Yup. Until people abstract over their previous experiences they will continue to find themselves in situations where they have had and discarded 5 different previous viewpoints only to think to themselves: "I've got it right this time, and anyone that disagrees is stupid".
Some would call this "Wisdom". Also interesting that learning this lesson does not make your current understanding any more accurate - it just reduces your confidence in it. Wisdom != Ability to understand.
Human eats mutagenic yam. Among various changes, it greatly augments intelligence.
The first thought of a Protector, just awakened from his mutative trance, is, "Wow, I have been really really dumb".
Like, I was much more excited about tinkering with tech when I was 25. I know I was, I know it made me happy, I know that is what got me where I am now in terms of money/etc., but I can rarely summon these feelings now. That is clearly degradation, if I could swap some "wisdom" or whatever that I gained for enthusiasm I would do it.
What else has degraded?
Let's consider a more ambivalent one, I was excited when Facebook/etc. came out but I think TikTok/Snapchat etc. are stupid gimmicks... am I wiser, or just older and more boring?
Etc.
I'll give you a personal example: both my parents _completely_ failed to manage their finances, they kept on borrowing money, refinancing the house 3-4 times.
Since the age of 17, as a young software engineer, I was constantly asked to help with the payments. Now that my mom has passed away, my dad has 0 income, he didn't bother to plan anything for his retirement and thus, we are forced to sell the house and both my brother and I have to forgo our share of the money so that he can survive.
In addition, I _still_ have to give help him financially and he refused to put his money in an investment account so that he can at least profit from the returns.. now he will basically eat every single dollar and then my brother and I have to yet again provide for him few years down the line.
Not only I got no support from them, I had to _on top of it_ fight my way through an uphill battle (they didn't even want me to study CS) and provide for them. They took all the child tax benefit money and ate it.. when I wanted to move at 20, I left with nothing, I just took my clothes.
Sure, parents are wise when it's about "not eating ice cream before dinner", but don't tell me they actually make good decisions.
Soooo many questions :-)
By getting into massive amounts of debt
You are choosing to do it despite them stealing from you.
At some point you bear responsibility for how you are treated.
Cut him off. Let him die alone. Not your problem.
I had to do the same with my alcoholic mother.
It was very hard it the moment her antics started affecting the quality of life of my family she had to go.
The money from the house? Since your dad didn't save for retirement, there was never any money to share. If you meant that you're forgoing some of your current income so he can survive, that's a different issue.
I don't even think this is due to a lack of financial education on their part. Feels more like compulsive spending, something a therapist might have been able to help them through had they been willing to talk to one.
Either way, it really sucks that you and your brother had to suffer so much for their failures.
I see other parents repeatedly inflicting on their kids rules and behaviours that are completely unnecessary but they think it's "the right thing"
i see this as truly stupid and a great way to sour your relationship with your kids when they get older and don't have to take it anymore
Today (at age 40) I still believe these rules were dumb and pointless, and actively harmful to my childhood development.
I do expect that, not being a parent myself, I might be judging some of these things more harshly than I otherwise would. But certainly not all things, and I certainly would have turned out just as ok (and possibly more ok-er) had many of these dumb rules not existed in the first place.
(Don't get me wrong, I still have a fairly good impression of my childhood, and I don't think these dumb rules did any permanent damage. But they were still dumb, and created more strife between my parents and me than was necessary when I was young.)
Or “stop it,” out of frustration.
Family members have babysat my kids, and this is a mistake I see all the time. If you tell kids not to do something, always tell them why. And be honest about it. It’s kids’ job to learn about the world, and it’s your job as a parent to teach them about it.
"You can't stay up until midnight because I said so."
Few parents would argue that not letting them stay up until midnight is a dumb rule. But the example certainly has a bad explanation.
The problem with this entire thread is that without concrete examples everyone is imagining their own which, not coincidentally, happen to match their already existing world view.
Here’s the thing, though: it’s true that going to bed early is a good rule, and it’s also true that parents feel entitled; that their rules apply to their kids but not them. That’s one reason kids hate their parents - they often deserve it!
It’s just life experience. I don’t know many parents who look back at their younger years thinking, “I had it all figured out back then.”
And the longer you watch it the more aware you become of the people trying to influence kids for different reasons specifically because those kids don’t look at it and call BS immediately.
Then all the "stupid" authoritarian, seemingly arbitrary and maybe even paranoid shit your parents pulled all of a sudden comes into focus and understanding. You, more easily see, how irrational panics happen/occur and sometimes when those panics aren't entirely unjustified
I expect that differs by cultural setting, nationality, etc..
Couple of examples: I'm less hot-headed as I age; I'm less physically able (much more than I expected).
Kids are perhaps often intuitively good at evaluating the severity of unintended consequences.
Adults are much better at being aware of deliberate efforts to take advantage of developmental stages and tendencies.
I guess your comments reminded me of that in the sense that you always have something to learn from people who went before you. Sometimes they have made mistakes you don't want to repeat, and sometimes you all collectively face things no one has faced before, but usually people who are experienced have some wisdom to impart.
Sometimes I think agism is partly a sign that the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of assuming everything we do is new. The Chesterton's Fence analogy in the original post is apt in this regard.
Always loved that quote.
Unfortunately it doesn't always work out that way. Parents can also get worse as you age and learn that some actions or behaviors are inexcusable. But as a younger person you either didn't understand the context or thought it was okay.
Indeed, many would envy those in this thread who seem to have avoided having the truly stupid/insane/wicked adults in their lives.
> I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.
I actually interpret this as Twain saying that his father was a jerk, but that said father managed to mature with time. But he's written it in a way that the average person would chuckle and say "ah, see, his father wasn't a jerk all along!". Either that, or he's just written a perfect magic mirror.
I think the same kind of quote would absolutely apply in exactly the same way to temperament though. The 14 year old thought his dad was a jerk who mellowed out by the time he was 21, the reality again being that the biggest change was actually the child's temperament.
I like to put it as: you give up some lower level freedoms (you have to wear a seatbelt) to gain other higher level ones (freedom to not die as an idiot on the way and to get to enjoy your trip to Disneyland).
― Mark Twain
Remember when you are a teenage in high school and teachers explain subtle messages in the reading? You and all your classmates are like: this is bs, totally made up by the teacher, even the author didn't think of those. Then after you get older and you may realize: those subtle messages are just so obvious and they just can't be explained to people without life experiences.
Jokes aside, totally agree with you. Definitely something you learn with age
I think about this a lot. When consuming media, I constantly notice these kinds of messages. As you said: It’s almost impossible not to. But back in school, I was convinced that 95% was made up.
There’s nothing stopping you from eating ice cream for breakfast, spending all of your money on Lamborghinis, and playing video games all day. As an adult you realize that those things won’t actually bring you true happiness and those decisions will cause significant negative consequences in the future that you’d rather avoid.
I don’t see what’s sad about that, other than maybe the disappointment of losing naiveté.
I don't know, this kind of feels like the adult version of ice cream for breakfast.
Maybe what you're describing is the difference between dreaming something and actually doing it. There's nothing forcing any of us to watch a ton of streaming video other than our own choices, although it's hard to decide to go out and do something different once you're in that habit.
From my own experience, some sadness is due to treating a few people with disdain in my youth. At times, I was an arrogant, pissy teen. I wish I could make amends, but some of those people are gone.
For 30 years, I had a very specific vision of how I'm going to be different. Whether in serious relationships or single, I was not really buying into my parents' generation OR my own generation ideas.
Then:
1. I met "The One"
2. We had kids
And now I'm living a fairly stereotypical North American lifestyle. And not... begrudgingly or resentfully or bitterly so! It's just that nothing could prepare me or give me true empathetic understanding of how my priorities, goals, and lifestyle would change.
An extremely superficial example is vehicle; I always had sport small hatchbacks. I used to have endless debates with my SUV-loving friends about how unsafe and overly large they are.
I now have a minivan. I love it. It's not a necessity, it's a luxury, but it's a luxury I WANT as a married parent of kids in North American suburb who loves to travel with extended family.
Myriad other things about raising kids too; e.g. I will never ever again judge another human being when their kid misbehaves in public, or how they're handling it. I'm humbled with deeper understanding of how little of a clue I have as to their relationship, parenting style, or what long long LOOONG chain of events precipitated the outburst and what may be the right way to handle it given the background... or, what the parent's energy levels and day are like.
I am a parent and a teacher and I think the process is very different. Yes I sometimes differ from how I thought I would raise my children, but only in the details.
Now with teaching the problem is that you have to deal with all the kids/adults that were raised in ways that you strongly disagree with.
I’ve had quite a few friends in my life - men and women - with eating disorders of all shapes and sizes. You can almost always find stories involving their parents at the core of them. Making everyone sit at the table until the last person has finished their plate, the old “starving children in Africa” line we’ve all heard at least secondhand, forcing toddlers to eat everything and then they get dessert as a direct reward (which often ignores teaching them how to read signs that they’re full). The list goes on.
We usually just ask our kid how much she wants to eat. It seems to work a lot better than the way my parents did it, with a lot less drama, and she's not growing up with an antagonistic and/or compulsive attitude towards food.
sometimes you do need another perspective. you go through the process without even thing about harm process could be causing.
> When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.
It's unlikely he personally said it, because his father died when he was about 11. But it sounds like something that he would have said in one of his books. [0]
I'm getting to the same age but I don't have kids yet. Still, I've grown to come to the same realisation as you did somewhere in my mid to late 20s (older people were, for the most part, right and I must have been an inssufferable twerp). I just thought it was something that came naturally to everybody with age.
Just like you I find myself constantly realizing most of my intuitions were wrong from being partially informed (and too keen on believing my perspective and intuitions)
On the other hand, our elders were young hot heads too at some point. They know we don't. :)
I definitely have the same resonance in terms of understanding, but I am also feeling like "Gosh, they had no clue what they were doing when they [game me this advice], [prevented me to do this], [scolded me for doing that] etc. etc.
I think two things led to this.
1. In ante-natal classes the person took us through child development and what children are capable of at different ages. In particular, newborns to about 6-8 months do not even have a concept of themselves as separate people. All they can learn at that time is whether the world is a good place where their needs have a chance of being met. They are incapable of e.g. deliberately crying in order to get picked up. If you do not respond to their suffering you are just going to create a needy and insecure child. So we dodged that bullet.
2. The book "Parent Effectiveness Training" which was a revelation to me. The basic idea is that children own their lives and the consequences of their decisions. Of course there is a limit - you don't let a 3 year old run into traffic. But as far as possible let children make their own decisions. They learn really fast that way. If you micro-manage their lives you end up with 18 year old children.
This does not mean you do not have rules in your house. You are not allowed to play drums at 3am, but that would apply to everyone.
So many parents impose their own choices and preferences on their children for no good reason, and it creates resentment and stops children from learning from their own decisions.
As one example, I have lactose intolerance but I was forced to drink milk, with resulting stomach aches, etc, for many years. I literally knew better than my parents and school in this matter. Similarly if you think you know better than your children in every matter, may I suggest contemplating the spectacle of a 15 year old dressed for a party by Mom.
After our daughter turned 12 we only overrode her on two things - becoming a vegatarian (not allowed until she completed her growth) and a change of school. In both cases we carefully listened to her point of view and considered it, and explained why on these rare occasions we overruled her. Because this was so rare, and handled in a respectful manner, she accepted the decisions.
My own mother waited with great anticipation for the teen rebellion that she had forced her own children into, but it never came with my daughter. Why rebel when there is no need? She never lost the love of learning and ended up with a PhD in a hard science.
One other comment on the OP. There seems to be a wider issue here. If you let children not work, and fail, then the first time there will be a commotion. But if teachers did this consistently, word would get around and it would be accepted. Students whose life goals required passing the test would do the work. But in fact many school subjects are useless to many people and not studying is a rational response to being taught irrelevant nonsense.
Anyway, I appreciate the article as someone who will soon try my hand at teaching. I will have a lot to learn.