<< Bah! Not a soldier or scientist in the bunch. >>
If I'd had a son who was a soldier, I'd feel I'd failed in the most profound way, as a parent. We agree on so many things, nihil, that it surprised me to read that a disappointment of yours is that you don't have a child in uniform.
I don't think all soldiers are bad, or all parents who raise children who are soldiers are bad, so please don't think I mean that, anyone. I know there are heroes and idealists among soldiers.
What I mean is that if a child raised by my husband and me ended up a soldier (today,) it would have to be that he or she had being paying no attention to what we, these two particular parents, were trying to teach him about life; or that he or she had been paying attention, and were in defiance.
And while I'm disagreeing with you about something, I think I'll remark about your exchange with Neocon about spanking.
I think you overreacted dramatically, and that that species of overreaction is a form of PC. I'll bet you hate to hear that, I don't think you are usually in the PC camp! But you were sure on a high horse, and inappropriately to what Neocon said, imho.
And a child does want to know who's 'boss,' if the boss is loving and reasonable and reasonably consistent. I ran a preschool program for "dependent and neglected children" for five years, and if I hadn't understood it before, I sure came to then.
I don't believe in beating kids; I was beaten as a child, and I mean seriously, by an insane mother; but I have seen terrible meanness by parents who would never give a kid a spank on the bottom when their child ran into the street, for example-- screaming, frightening them, coldness, rage, contempt. A spank on the bottom is nothing much-- it is not hate. It is operant conditioning, and not a death threat. Spanks on the bottom are not what is killing children or driving them to craziness and violence, either.
If you seriously threatened to kill your parents when you were six years old, it is a terrible story with terrible implications, of course, though you present it lightheartedly.
Please don't take this post as a personal attack, it isn't; it's just taking what you say seriously, and being disturbed by some of it. |
