Boomer Connections This Boomer's Life

Boy, is there a big difference in parenting today compared to when I was growing up!  As I listen to some today, it sounds as though everything our parents did was wrong.  Was everything our parents did bad, damaging, or worthy of being called child abuse?  I think not.  There is a big difference between child abuse and disciplining with love.  I realize that this is a touchy subject for many, but this is just how I feel about the subject and in no way suggest that parents today are bad parents.

While on Facebook recently, I saw the following post:

Although it was meant for those growing up in the 80s, it also applies to parenting in the 60s.  These same principles work in every generation if we are only bold enough, as parents, to enforce them.  Today, the children seem to be controlling the way they want to be brought up in the home.

I recalled that I was wholeheartedly against raising my children the way my parents raised me.  I thought we had a reason to call what our parents did “child abuse.” I realize now why they did the things they did.  When I used similar parenting techniques on my children, I may have been even tougher on them than my parents were on me.  I also realized that I was the parent and my children needed a parent more than they needed a friend.  I loved my children and if I didn’t teach them about life while they were at home, the streets would be harder on them than I could ever be.

I recall a situation in a department store when my children were small: A child was running erratically under the clothes hanging on the racks.  The parent was standing right there and didn’t say anything to the child, even though they plainly saw the child was misbehaving.  My children saw this and just looked up at me.  They knew they could not act out in this manner.  If you were a child in the 60s, all my Mom would have done is said it one time, “come here and stand next to me” in that certain tone.  You knew exactly what that meant.  If our parents ever had to say “come here” twice in that tone of voice, you knew, painfully, what you were in for when you got home.  Sometimes we didn’t have to wait till we got home, we got our punishment right there in the store and there was no reporting it to social services as “child abuse.”

All I’m trying to say is this: Parents, if you love your children be parents to them and not friends.  I am a big believer in the bible and its teachings. King Solomon was considered to be the wisest man in Israel during his time.  The scriptures teach us in Proverbs 21:5 to “train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”  Another proverb in verse 15 states: “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.”  I know this philosophy will not go over well with many, but this is what I believe.  As parents, you have been there, so learn from your experiences and teach them to your children.