Monthly Archives: June 2013

Having kids does not cost that much, spoiling them does

I came across yet another article about the horrendous cost of raising children in America. It inspired me to write this post which is not in response to the above mentioned article in particular, but to all of the complaints about the high and growing costs of child rearing in general. Every time I read an article like this I wonder how does anyone manage to spend so much money on a kid that is not even grateful. Do people feed them gold flakes with diamonds? No, they just spoiled them too much with too many classes, toys, laptops, tablets and other electronic gadgets. There are two reasons for that: the culture of worshiping children and the inability to assess what is really essential and what is just another useless or even harmful expense.

American parents spend a lot of money on gadgets like hundreds or thousands of toys, fancy or too many strollers (new ones for each child), monster-sized yard playgrounds, inflatable castles, not to mention computer games, tablets, smartphones, computers, laptops for each kid, and other electronic equipment not necessary at this age. Does a kid really need a potty tablet, or a smartphone? I doubt it. If you really need to contact your school kid, a simple cell phone is enough.

Sometimes, driving by houses, I see this stuff, especially toys and strollers, laying about not in use, or in a yard sale. The items sold at yard sales will at least get recycled and some people will donate their stuff to charities, which is highly appreciable, but most of the purchases will eventually end up in the garbage contributing to environmental destruction.

What is the use of a new stroller for each kid if the old one is still in good condition? Why buy a new stroller at all, if you can take the one your friends have in their basement that is still in very good condition? Why buy tons of plastic toys? The Earth does not need more plastic and the spoiled child will not appreciate it anyway, maybe will not even thank you for it, throwing it in a deep corner of the room after two minutes. Why buy designer clothes for a two year old, or any new clothes for that matter? Your sister will be happy to give you the clothes your niece grew out of just a few months ago. Your daughter will not die from her cousin’s germs; washing them is enough. Are these items not fancy enough? Are you embarrassed to be labeled as cheap or poor? If so, say that this is for environment reasons, you will be called trendy.

Americans so often underline how they encourage kids’ creativity, yet they fail to involve their offspring in creative mending of damaged toys. They spend money instead of teaching children to release their creativity and make their own toys of fabric scraps, boxes or blocks of wood. My elementary school taught and actively encouraged these activities. I loved to make dolls and clothing for them using leftover pieces of fabric and yarn or making cars using boxes and colorful paper that would otherwise be thrown away. Yes, I was allowed and able to use a sewing machine at the age of 7 and no, it did not bite my hands off, I am typing this post using my 10 fingers. Why not encourage kids to embrace these kinds of activities?

Another issue is the price of food. How many times have you heard that food is so expensive, that prices are going constantly up and many people cannot afford organic food, thus eat unhealthy fast foods? I drive frequently around places with a small downtown area and large residential areas of houses with yards. Guess how many yards I have seen with vegetables growing in them? Zero. Z-e-r-o. People do not grow their food in their yards. I have seen four fruit trees altogether. Even these people, labeled in America as poor, although they would be rich in most places in the world, do not grow their food. They say they cannot afford organic vegetables. Can the nation really afford this kind of waste of resources? My aunt who lived with her elderly mother wanted to sow grass in their yard because she saw the beautiful lawns and hedges in American movies. Her mother said: Will you eat that grass? Are you a cow? They ended up planting vegetables, eating them when in season and making preserves for the period of time they are not in season. They were not poor, some peoples simply like to use resources wisely. How many Americans make preserves?

Why not teach the kids to grow vegetables? The whole family might enjoy doing it together. My cousins were required to work in their parents’ agricultural business starting at the age of 6 every day after school and after homework was completed, and worked longer hours during vacation time. I helped whenever I visited. We all enjoyed it. Now, as the older generation retires, one of them uses that land and the skills learned during childhood to run an organic farm. Her tomatoes are famous in the area for their delicious taste. Your child does not need to become an organic farmer in the future, but growing your own food is a valuable lesson of respect for work, respect for nature and brings a lot of savings to the grocery bill.

When people complain about food prices they also mean restaurant prices. Yes, restaurants can be expensive, but why not use them only for special occasions and eat at home everyday? No time to cook? Why not share the tasks with the kids, cook together and eat at home? It will be much faster if more people contribute to the work. You will also have an opportunity to teach them the table manners so many children in America lack terribly. By not taking kids to restaurants, you will not only save a lot of money, but also do a huge favor to so many people who, each day, are exposed to uncontrollable rude behavior of ill-mannered kids in those venues. Unfortunately, so many children do not appreciate the restaurant experience at all, and most of them offend other patrons being extremely rude, with their parents’ silent permission.

Way too often I see in public places obnoxious, screaming kids and parents stuffing candy in their kid’s mouths to keep them quiet instead of teaching them respect. Teaching the kids to stay quiet while in public places and to respect other people upon an adult’s request, not contingent upon a candy bribe, will save you money on junk food. You will also save a lot on dentist bills that can become very high, especially in case of children used to chocolate bar snacks to shut their mouths. Even if junk snacks are not used as bribes or as mouth stuffing devices, they are still unhealthy, as are sugary drinks. They can be easily eliminated, which will save a lot of money.

The vehicles people so often use to drive kids add up to the high cost as well. Minivans and monster size SUVs cost a lot. Why not use a simple sedan? People in other developed countries use them to drive kids, if they use any car at all, many kids are simply required to walk to day care or school, or to use public transportation, and their offspring usually turns out better raised. What would a kid need a huge vehicle for? Just another gadget out of the parents’ whim.

Private schools and extracurricular activities add significantly to the cost of raising children. There is no reason to exaggerate with using them. Kids really do not need lots of classes for all sports, all dances and two musical instruments. They will not become geniuses just because you drive them from one class to another and from one fast food joint to another in between and from one game to another all day long. Letting them play by themselves, together, without organized classes, and invent their own games may even do more good because it boosts the ability to think.

I understand that the cost of childcare is very high due to the lack of public, affordable daycare centers and high prices of the private ones. Public daycare works really well in many European countries. It not only stores kids when parents are working, it also teaches them social skills and corrects their behavior and manners when some parents fail. In America, there is a cultural problem though. Due to a gender discriminating assumption expressed by so many people that a permanently unemployed mother is the best for childcare, there is no push or lobby for creating public daycare and who knows when and if at all it will eventually arise. Until then, the cost of childcare will remain high.

Also, there are many other costs that can be reduced if the parents are spending money on these: Parenting classes, diapering classes, and lactation consultants. These additional costs are just another whim after all. Millions of people all around the world are doing much better without them.

A recipe for failure

Many American parents fail because they are inconsistent and give up too easily. Countless times, in different towns, in different states, on different ends of this large country I have seen a parent give an order to a child without enforcing it. Here are some examples:

Example 1: Small town in New Jersey, I do not remember which one because many of them look alike with their endless rows of houses. A kid about 4 years old was biking in the yard in a direction away from home. A young woman, whether a mother, a relative, or a nanny, it is really unimportant, shouted from the doorway of the house: “Come here!”. The kid kept biking away. She did nothing. She simply gave up and did not enforce her request. My mother, or any parent I know, would go to the kid, grab it and bring it to the place indicated as “here” to show it:

a) What “come here” means;

b) That a kid must obey an adult; and

c) That a kid will never get away with disobeying because an efficient enforcement system is in place.

The woman failed to do so, thus, she failed to teach the kid a valuable lesson. The next time the same kid may disobey her order and will for sure disrespect people in public places many times.

Example 2: Parking lot in Austin, TX. A guy parked his car, got out and opened the back door to let his kid out. He took the kid, about 5 years old, into his arms and said: “stand”. The kid did not stretch its legs for standing, having clearly no intention of standing at all. The guy gave up and carried the kid to the store, failing to enforce his request. A responsible, consequent adult would make the kid stand no matter what, for the same a), b) and c) reasons listed above, with only the activity changing in point a). The way this father acted, the kid was deprived of a valuable lesson. A couple of months down the road the same kid may disobey a “do not cross the road” order from an adult and get run over by a car just because it is encoded in its mind that adults’ orders mean nothing as they are not enforced.

Example 3: Santa Monica, CA, on a sidewalk in front of a health food store. A woman took a kid out of the car. The kid started running ahead. The women shouted “do not run”. The kid kept running. The woman did absolutely nothing. She failed to teach the kid the same lesson the same way the two persons above failed. Can you see the pattern a), b) and c) here?

Example 4: New York City Subway. A woman was talking to another adult. Her child, about 6 years old, was pulling her arm, shouting “mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy”, each time louder, disrespecting with this disruptive behavior, not only the mother and her interlocutor, but also other passengers. The woman finally said something to make the kid stop, but she did it quite late, when the rude behavior was already going on and on for some time. This example is different than the three above, but only by a little bit. She should have made the kid stop the disrespectful behavior the first time it started disrupting the conversation of the adults in order to teach it effectively not to repeat this kind of behavior in the future. The way she acted, the kid will most likely disrupt other adults’ conversations and other peoples’ quiet enjoyment in the future.

In all the above cases, the kids ages 4-6 should have been taught to respond immediately to adults’ requests a long time before. Failure to do so unavoidably resulted in kids’ rudeness, disobedience and lack of respect and may potentially result in situations dangerous for them. I am sure you have seen many of these kids and parents in many public places because the patterns “do not do it (or do it) – disobedience – no reaction” are so common.

I do not know if people do not enforce their requests because they are simply lazy or because they kowtow to the incarnated deity – their kid. Either way, they are doing both the child and the society a huge disfavor.

In most of the societies I know with exemplary results of well-mannered children, people teach them to respect adults’ requests much earlier, usually before their first birthday, and continue consistently, with no exceptions, by reacting promptly and unavoidably. In kid-obsessed America, they do it very late, if at all. The results are deplorable.

Giving orders and letting a child disobey by not reacting at all or reacting too late is the best recipe for a parental failure so commonly seen in all public places in kid-worshiping America.

Take an example of the Africans

I could not be more impressed by the politeness and respect of the children in sub-Saharan Africa. From Nigeria, to Mozambique, to Angola, to Togo, I have never seen a single example of a rude behavior by a kid. There is no outrageous, senseless screaming, no uncoordinated, wild bouncing off the walls, no talking back. The kids always obey the adults, they always respect the adults, and especially the elderly, they are quiet and still when appropriate, yet they have lots of fun in the proper time and place and seem very happy.

What is the secret? What do their parents do differently to achieve this exemplary outcome? What could Americans learn from their African counterparts? I see a couple of major differences.

No African adult would ever worship and obey a kid. Children are very important to the family and to the society, but they must know their place in the hierarchy.
Children do not get away with any offense or mischief they are caught doing. They are consistently brought to order and disciplined by an adult or an older kid.
It does take a village. Children are part of the society and with the parent absent, any member of the society brings them to order. The parents never get aggressive about that. To the contrary, they are grateful that someone else did their job when they could not do it in person.
Kids work and I do not mean the child labor that is known as forbidden and undesired exploitation. I mean chores, long forgotten in kid-obsessed America. Doing housework teaches them respect for other people, for work and how to be a responsible adults in the future.
Adults do not invent any fads of “parenting styles” changing every now and then. They do not read any “how to” manuals telling them that worshiping and spoiling the kid is the best. Some African farmers barely can even read. They learn how to raise kids by simply living in the society, around other people, around younger kids, watching, participating and naturally assuming their social roles.

I often hear Americans say that people in Africa should use birth control, and categorize all Africans as a group with the dismissive and contemptuous label of “poor”. I think this opinion is very unfair considering the level of knowledge (or rather lack thereof) an average American has about the continent. Instead, Americans should seriously take an example of the Africans for one simple reason: people in sub-Saharan Africa get impressive results worth following. It is not an outmoded or conservative way of raising kids as some Americans claim. It is realistic, practical and effective and should become a trend for everyone.

Crime and… wait,… where is the punishment?

All around the world kids get punished for their wrongdoing, be it disobeying an adult, be it disrespecting someone, be it trying to be rude otherwise. Not in kid-obsessed America though.

In America, kids get away with all kinds of inappropriate behavior you cannot imagine. They run wildly and yell outrageously in public places, talk back to adults, disobey, throw objects at people, destroy property, have no table manners, keep feet on seats, even spit chewed food out openly or throw food around. They even beat their parents – something so unimaginable in most cultures in the world – and are not punished for it. To make things even worse, too many people not only do not consider it wrong, but also think of this kind of behavior as cute or smart. Nobody reacts when a child misbehaves, neither the parents, nor the society. Encouraged by no discipline or even by applause from adults, kids get worse and worse in all kinds of rudeness and disrespect.

Can you imagine a thief breaking into your home and not being reported or prosecuted? Can you imagine other kinds of crime not being penalized? What would you think of the justice system if the society did not react to crime at all and if the government did not do its job in punishing wrongdoing? What would you think if people, when they hear about or witnesses some illegal act, reacted like: “oh, that’s so cute”, “that’s so clever”, “that’s so creative”?

I was lucky to grow up in a society that disciplined kids for all kinds of misbehavior. A child would not get away with any kind of rudeness or disrespect because there was always an adult – a parent, teacher, neighbor or relative – or an older kid to discipline it. The reaction of the society was immediate and the punishment unavoidable.

Years later, at the university, I attended classes in criminal law. When discussing the upsides and downsides of the death penalty, the professor told us that in order to be effective and a deterrent, a penalty does not have to be cruel, but it must be prompt and unavoidable. I learned this lesson in relation to crime, but at that time I did not yet relate it to life.

Only in kid-obsessed America, seeing all the unacceptable behavior by kids, I understood that the same principle was practiced every day by everyone in my society, that it was very effective and that it terribly lacked in this child-centric nation. The result of lack of this principle in force is deplorable.

In order to create a society with polite and respectful kids, prompt, unavoidable punishment and discipline should be instilled and enforced, not only by parents, but also by the society as a whole, especially by schools. In public places, everyone should react when seeing kids misbehave by requiring the parents to bring their offspring to order and restore respect. People should not be shy (unfortunately, in this kid-worshiping society they too often are) in demanding it. It is their basic right to be respected and to be able to enjoy public space.

Why are American kids so rude?

Americans are a kid-obsessed society. The center of their universe are kids. Their world revolves around kids. Their lives are focused on pleasing, spoiling and worshiping kids. Adults are at kids’ orders and mercy everywhere, all the time, no exceptions, no breaks, no excuses. Worst of all, American parents impose their outrageously behaving offspring on other people and harass these people into the belief that there is nothing wrong in the said behavior.

As a result of this omnipresent worship on one side and permissiveness on the other, kids are extremely rude, selfish and entitlement-minded. They have no respect for anyone, do not know any authority, do not know what obedience is and do not know a difference between a playground and an office or a bank. They fill all public spaces with ear-piercing and aggressive screams, monkey-like jumps (no offense to actual monkeys) and wild kicks, thus ruining the whole experience for everybody else out in society.

How come in other societies kids stand still and quiet as well as obey and respect adults? The difference is proper training in these societies and lack thereof in kid-obsessed America.

As a person who lived in other countries and traveled to six continents, I see clear and obvious differences in the way kids are treated between the societies where they are respectful and obedient and kid-obsessed America where worshiping them yields lamentable results.

In this blog, I will show the differences in raising processes as well as in the way the societies regard a kid and its place in these societies.