__Do you have any friends or family members whose kids are so spoiled you can't stand them? Spoiled kids are the worst kind of children. You obviously can't say this aloud, but you can't help but wonder, "Why are these damn kids so f*** spoiled?"
I blame the parents.
Let me quote Nora Ephron and her take on parenting. In one of her essays, she wrote that she came from a generation where mom and dad were simply parents, but this later evolved into a verb, a science called "parenting."
Suddenly, one day, there was this thing called parenting. Parenting was fierce. Parenting was a participle, like going and doing and crusading and worrying; it was active and energetic. Parenting meant playing Mozart CDs while you were pregnant, doing without the epidural, and breast-feeding your child until it was old enough to unbutton your blouse.
This child-centered rearing seems to be a creation of modern-day American society. It used to be that children would devise ways to entertain themselves and develop without mom and dad hovering over them, and when parents said no, they meant no.
I've witnessed a mother telling her daughter, "No. We don't throw the milkshake at mommy's face, because mommy gets wet and it's not nice."
Kill me now!
Further, many parents really ask nothing from their kids and they do every little single task for them. Kids sit down to eat and ask why there is no silverware on the table, instead of standing up to get it. K__ids that don't learn to do any chores__ grow up to become teenagers that don't know how to operate kitchen appliances, and when they become young adults, they're totally useless handling the simple everyday tasks.
Now we see a generation of unemployed college grads moving back home who sit around waiting for mom and dad to feed them and do their laundry, all while the parents are drowning in tuition debt.
This is unacceptable. As parents we'll always be there for our kids, but if we raise a useless person, we are doing him more damage than good.
A former school principal said, "Today's parents are not just 'helicopter parents', they are a 'jet-powered turbo attack model' trying to clear every obstacle from their children's paths."
I believe that as parents we work too hard to help our kids, we are missing the part where we're actually holding them back, the constant monitoring of their every single activity — is making them less confident — to do anything on their own.
My mom always tells me to ignore my kids when they are misbehaving. She says, "let them cry, let them whine, let them throw a tantrum, eventually they will stop." It's true, we don't have to indulge our kids every time they cry. They have to understand from early on that as much as we adore them, they are not the center of the world, and acting like spoiled brats will get them nothing.
Our children will become women and men one day, let's make sure we do our part to bring up a generation of good, hard-working, appreciative, independent and smart adults. Or at least let's try.
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