Freedomain Radio

 Oy vey! I think this writer really needed a hug.

However, I think I will try out shaking hands with my kids when we wake up tomorrow. We should all get a good laugh out of it.

Wow, though I am with them on treating children more like we do adults, but in respecting them more, not treating them like a freaking business associate.

I think it is interesting and pretty telling that he says "we rarely see a happy child"...

I mean just what does that mean? without context I cannot tell, but we suppose that it means the writer rarely sees happy children, or that the writer's colleagues who are also men and have studied children rarely see them happy. Perhaps the writer is using some strange definition of happy...

Regardless, I know in my experience with children that they are happy most of the time when I am playing with them, or talking with them. I went to visit my nephew over the weekend and the only time I saw him unhappy was for a few moments after I told him he couldn't do something, but a minute later he was fine again.

I imagine this guy getting home in the evening and expecting to see well behaved nicely dressed children at dinner who would speak unless spoken to and then expected to retire to his study and not be bothered the rest of the evening. I betcha he was a load of fun at parties

When I see this kind of literature, which certainly abounded many years ago (I was born in 1954) I realise that it gives credence to my parents' argument that they believed that their cold and sometimes aggressive parenting style was the right way to bring up a child (assuming they did bother to consult any parenting manuals). Of course it does not justify their hostility when I pointed out to them that such ideas were completely wrong. The reaction of a moral and honest person would be curiosity followed by horror, the greatest regret and profuse apologies (I think). 

This guy must've been a great guy to be around. I just can't imagine him ever being single...

I really wonder how anyone can really believe such a thing... that takes a special kind of trauma, I think. I doubt it's as simple as his own parents treated him that way, so now he's justifying it, it's got to be more complex than that. I bet these assertions are based on personal prejudice, he says "we rarely see a happy child", and this is proof that motherly love does not make a child happy. It is from that point on that we can see how the rest might seem to make sense, once we accept that initial "fact". But how can a healthy mind be made to believe such nonsense, something so obviously wrong?

Surely he must not have been a very happy child, so everything he saw in children was a reflection of what he saw in himself. If he saw a child smiling, they were being spoiled and would not be functional adults. A laughing child was immature. A crying child was not learning how to properly deal with pain. We're all broken robots. I wonder if this is the same type that is drawn to determinism? Ah, too much speculation now, but it is interesting to psychoanalyze these kinds of people.

There were a number of divergent suggestions for parenting, even in the 1950s, but many parents tend to be drawn towards that style of parenting that most helps them avoid their own childhood traumas - often unconsciously of course.

I beg to disagree but I'd love to give and show all the love in me to my child while I can. Life is short and I don't want to miss out on opportunities to make her feel loved. And I don't think that that will spoil her in any way because I always try my best to teach her the right ways and to become the best that she can be. 

agkk123:

I beg to disagree but I'd love to give and show all the love in me to my child while I can. 

...

I always try my best to teach her the right ways and to become the best that she can be.  

Maybe I'm missing something, but I am confident in saying that no-one else on this thread was suggesting any other method of parenting. Many compliments for your commitment to being a loving parent. We need more of this in the world

As for "teaching her the right ways" I guess that could depend on how you establish them. I'm not suggesting that your "right ways" are skewed of course, I will assume they are based on excellent principles, but I recognise that all parents will claim they are teaching the right way, even when they are treating their kids harshly or infecting their minds with superstition : that's where philosophy can help. Speaking subjectively, I wish I had discovered its power when my daughter was still small. As for teaching kids, I think they will respond to how parents act rather than what parents say - hopefully there is a good correlation between the two, but this is not always the case.

 I took it that he (or she - I haven't checked further) was disagreeing with the article. 

[Edit: Oh!  I was just reading the thread as it came in my email box.  Now I've seen her picture.  Pretty sure agkk123 is a woman.  I should make this my permanent icon.]