Tag Archives: fad

The “trying hard” excuse

There is a new fad promoted recently by the media in a very importunate way. It appears its goal is to make people accept extreme rudeness when it comes from a kid or a parent or to manipulate them into feeling guilty whenever they require the minimum of respect in public places. Its main message is that parents try so hard to make their kids respectful in public places like churches or supermarkets, and they should be praised for the simple fact that they have a kid instead of being brought to order for failure to make the said kid respect other users of the public space. Parents try so hard? Let’s look at it closer.

In kid-obsessed America, all sorts of public places are full of extremely rude kids running wild, yelling, screaming, throwing food all over restaurant dining rooms, bumping into people in stores or on the street, slobbering food products that are subsequently sold to unaware customers and doing so as they enjoy unlimited impunity. They are always accompanied by an adult, in most of the cases a parent or both of them, but get away with all kinds of unacceptable behavior simply because these parents do absolutely nothing to enforce respect and politeness. They do not “try hard”, they do not try at all. Even the fact that these kids are so rude tells a lot about their parents: they do nothing to raise their kids, to teach them basic respect and manners, or to discipline them before bringing their bundles of germs to public places.

I am pretty sure that everyone who has lived in kid-obsessed America for some time saw, and especially heard, outrageously rude kids in restaurants running through the aisles, throwing food around, sticking their snotty fingers into other customers’ food, or into buffet containers,  accosting other patrons for attention, and above all screaming and yelling at the top of their lungs. These kids do not go to restaurants alone. They are brought there by their parents, and these parents have a duty to control their children. Out of countless times of seeing unacceptably rude kids in restaurants, I have never seen a single case of a parent trying to discipline the kid for any type of rudeness and make it behave respectfully. I do not even mention any trying “hard” because they were not trying at all. They were enjoying themselves, selfishly oblivious to their ill-mannered progeny disrespecting other patrons and ruining their evening out.

In respectful cultures, these problems usually do not happen because responsible parents teach their kids manners before bringing them out. If, however, as an exception, a kid is trying to be rude, the parents bring it to order immediately, in the same second when the unacceptable behavior starts, and this includes removing it from the premises instantly to end other people’s exposure to it. This is the most efficient way of teaching a kid what is unacceptable: curb the behavior in the same second when it starts. The kid will most likely never do it again. However, American parents never try to bring their rude kid to order, even if they claim they are “trying hard”. There should be no mercy and no excuse for them. They should be strictly required by the business to leave immediately if they do not want to respect other people. Respectful customers should strictly require the restaurant to remove them or cancel their orders and leave.

Another example that most likely everyone has seen is extremely rude kids on planes, yelling, running wild up and down the aisles, kicking the seats in front of them, or slobbering other passengers with their hands sticky of saliva. As a frequent flyer, I have never, not even once, seen a parent discipline his or her kid for doing any of the above. They not only do nothing to bring the kid to order, but also become extremely aggressive when requested to do so by an offended passenger or by a flight attendant. They use their “it’s just a kid” or “kids will be kids” excuses and belligerently defend their precious snowflake’s usurped “right” to be rude. Respectful kids of respectful parents do not scream or kick other people’s seats and if they exceptionally try to do it, they are curbed by the parent in the same second when they start.

The most egregious American kid’s behavior I witnessed on a plane was the one that was screaming and yelling aggressively, jumping like a monkey on the back of the seat in front of it every ten or so seconds hitting the passenger sitting there on his head, and beating (!!!) its parents. The parents seemed so proud of the offspring they produced that when given “the look” by many passengers, returned plastic smiles with messages on their faces saying “just look at what a miraculous wonder we produced”. They obviously did nothing to end the appalling behavior. They did not “try hard”, they did not try at all. They were so infatuated with their obnoxious brat that they seemed to want to force it on everyone around. I required the flight attendant to impose order, and only thanks to her intervention all the wild behavior ended.

Kids acting in an unacceptable way in supermarkets and stores are also a common view in kid-obsessed America. Screaming wildly, slobbering on the produce, throwing objects, destroying goods, running wild, and bumping into people is unacceptable but widespread. The lazy, oblivious parents ignore their offspring’s behavior completely. They do not “try hard”, they do not try at all. If they had the minimum of respect for other shoppers, they would have curtailed the unacceptable behavior immediately, or taken the kid outside and brought it to order there. However, they are too entitled to do it. They selfishly continue shopping and make it not only miserable for everyone else but also cause a health hazard for people who buy the products with their kid’s saliva, snots, and germs on them.

Also, in American churches kids behave in an unacceptable way, similar to the behavior anywhere else as described above. Their parents fail to teach them respect, to discipline them, or to remove them. Again, they do not “try hard”, they do not try at all. The purpose of a church service is a respectful and pensive worship of whichever God one believes in. Church services are not to worship a kid deity (other than baby Jesus in the case of Christians), or to succumb to its whims and get exposed to its unacceptable behavior and germs. I was shocked, driving by churches during service times, to see numerous kids being kept outside by a few adults who were doing it, as it seemed, as a job. Later on I learned that it was indeed a job, whether on a professional or volunteer basis. I was shocked to learn that it is a common assumption to keep kids in day care-like settings while the adults are attending the service. These kids were old enough to be required to sit or stand quietly and respectfully not only for an hour but also for a couple of hours in any place accessible to other people where respect for the other people is required. Their parents failed to have taught them that and preferred to leave them out. They were not trying hard, they just passed the problem onto somebody else, and these kids did not learn that they should be respectful. There are also parents who do not leave their kids out but take them inside and allow them to ruin other people’s experiences with God. These are not trying at all, either.

When I was taken to church as a kid, kids of all ages, including toddlers, were strictly required to stand still and quiet during the whole service. They were also required to give up their seats for adults, and it was strictly enforced, except for the service for children when they had priority seating. The kids’ service did not mean a kid could be rude, it only meant the intellectual level of the service was adjusted to the youngest minds. When a kid exceptionally tried to be disruptive, also during the kids’ service, the preacher required the parents to remove it and did it publicly, right from the pulpit using the microphone for everyone else to hear. It was an extreme shame for the parents to be brought to order for being disrespectful and an effective measure to provide peaceful services. It was not the “old good days” thing as that society still conducts services the same way now. When I travel to different countries and go to services of different denominations (driven by a traveler’s curiosity of the culture, not for worship), I never see or hear children being rude or being kept in separate places to prevent rudeness. They are strictly required to have basic respect just as I was.

The authors of the articles that promote the fad of more acceptance for extreme rudeness should rethink what they write because they have two problems. First – the information they spread is simply not true because parents not only do not try hard; they do not try at all. In these very few exceptional cases when they seem to try a little bit, they give the kid an order, let the kid totally ignore it, and do nothing to enforce it, thus, setting themselves for a total parental failure. Second – kids’ rudeness in public places is absolutely unacceptable and should never be promoted in the media or otherwise as normal kids’ behavior or as a behavior that should be accepted or excused by polite people. This approach is very harmful, not only for the society, but also for the kids themselves. Every attempt of unacceptable kids’ behavior must be curbed immediately when it starts. The society should strictly enforce order and respect.

Why are Americans unable to raise children?

Americans totally fail to raise their children. This is a fact that can be easily verified by spending a few minutes in any public place in America. Their kids are extremely rude, noisy, entitled, self-centered, and very unsanitary. These characteristics are so common that many people who have never lived in other cultures and were not exposed to polite, well raised children nor to a successful child-rearing process think that they are inherent to all children. No, they are not. They are a result of a parental failure and the easiest way to corroborate it is to spend some time in those societies that yield polite and respectful kids, for example, in sub-Saharan Africa, and compare.

In most societies around the world, people grow up in overcrowded housing developments exposed to relatives’ and neighbors’ kids every day and participate in raising them every day, just as their parents and grandparents once did. As kids are omnipresent, they interact with them a lot while still being kids themselves, they watch the adults discipline and punish younger children and repeat their actions in similar circumstances, learning this way how to raise them. They know when to discipline and punish a child and how: they also know how and at what occasion to praise it. They know what the desirable standard of behavior is as they were brought up to this standard themselves, and they see younger children being consistently brought up to the same standard. They know what behavior is unacceptable as they were disciplined and punished for this behavior and they see younger children being consistently disciplined and punished for exactly the same.

In these societies there are no “parenting styles”, “parenting experts”, or “parenting classes”. People learn all child-related skills while simply living their lives, and usually they learn it before puberty. They do not over-intellectualize the child-rearing process and apply what they have learned while participating in raising other “village” children. Yes, it does take a village, and in village-like, participating societies people have child-rearing skills and lots of experience before they actually have a child of their own.

American kids grow up in the luxury of separate homes, with their parents only, and are deprived of this valuable experience. They are not exposed to child-rearing processes, and the few of them who have much younger siblings usually witness their parent’s struggle and fail. Their contact with children is limited to occasional part-time babysitting in high school, or on holiday visits to their relatives. They are completely deprived of the valuable lesson of witnessing, participating in, and learning from a successful raising process. They start learning how to raise a child only when they have their own, and so often fail terribly.

As if this was not enough, they see outrageous children’s behavior in public places and entitled parents’ hostile behavior defending their offspring’s “right” to be rude being common that a pattern appears in their minds that this is normal, as this is the only way of dealing with kids they can observe. They witness the disregard and contempt Americans have for a participating society without being aware that rejecting the participation leads to failure in raising kids.

When their own children come into this world, they are lost. They resort to “how to” manuals of doubtful quality written by self-proclaimed “experts” who never participated in raising children except for their own and failed, and who never lived in or even visited a society with polite and respectful children. They resort to “specialists” in “child development” or “child psychology” spawned by universities after a few years of theoretical studies, who run their coaching sessions or write their books based on studies with a small sample group instead of lifelong experience in the cultures successful in child-rearing. They spend a lot of money on “parenting classes” and books or magazines of doubtful quality that are designed or written by theoreticians presenting latest fads of “parenting styles” that change every time the wind blows. By the way, did someone ever check how much all that “parenting style” market is worth? I bet there is huge money behind it. The results of following it are deplorable – American kids, extremely rude, selfish, and entitlement-minded are totally unable to live in a society and to respect the society they live in.

American parents should learn from the societies in which kids are really polite and respectful, like the sub-Saharan African ones, but instead, they dismiss these societies with the contemptuous labels of “poor” or “primitive”. Why reinvent the wheel? The wheel is already there, passed from generation to generation, in a consistent, unchanged form and yielding great results. The American attempts to design the child raising wheel, meanwhile fail and become farther and farther from the desired one, resembling a square rather than a wheel at this moment.

American parents need to wake up, rethink their behavior, and start learning from successful societies instead of learning from “experts” of doubtful credentials who earn a lot of money prescribing recipes for a parental disaster.