The Selfish Child

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 8/31/03 | Robert Shaw

[I_Love_My_Husband]

general interest ping

long article but interesting

[jocon307]

Very interesting, thanks for posting this. It's about time someone wrote this book.

[riri]

bkmk

[Reeses]

Shaw admits to a nagging fear of being "lynched in his hometown": Berkeley

What's amazing is nowhere does he mention creating a new government program or raising taxes. He must live in Berkeley because as a psychiatrist that's where his customers are.

[Fraulein]

ping

[independentmind]

Shaw's book, "The Epidemic: The Rot of American Culture, Absentee and Permissive Parenting, and the Resultant Plague of Joyless, Selfish Children,"

Wow. I may have to buy this book.

[MeekOneGOP]

Thanks !

[EggsAckley]

Fascinating. Thanks for posting this.

[MeekOneGOP]

Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my General Interest ping list!. . .don't be shy.

[don-o]

Bump for later.

Looks very interesting

[independentmind]

Can you go to stores, restaurants or libraries without seeing these joyless children screaming, throwing food or pulling packages or books off shelves?

I see this almost everytime I go shopping or to certain restaurants; usually, the parents' solution is to buy the child something.

[angry elephant]

My son was in daycare and then private school all his life. He was well-behaved and a good student in prvate school. He now has a good job and a wife who he met in private school.

At this late date, though, he complains about not having spent enough time with me as a child. His private school did have a lot of hoemwork, so a lot of our time together was spent working on that rather than fun activities.

Although he didn't act out after the terrible twos, I wonder now if my own boredom with the public schools as a child caused me to want something for him that he didn't really want. He is very athletic, and maybe he would have been happier with more sports and a shallower education. His sporting events away from school created transportation problems, so that if I was tied up he had to take a cab. In public school, he could have just got on the after-school bus like the band members and athletes did when I was a kid. Also in retrospect, he might have preferred the larger crowds n public school. I just assumed that, like me, he would tire of waiting for the slower students to keep up.

I think is a strange outcome of wanting something for your child that you wanted for yourself. He definitely was a privileged child, bu still he wanted more.

[angry elephant]

My son was in daycare and then private school all his life. He was well-behaved and a good student in prvate school. He now has a good job and a wife who he met in private school.

At this late date, though, he complains about not having spent enough time with me as a child. His private school did have a lot of hoemwork, so a lot of our time together was spent working on that rather than fun activities.

Although he didn't act out after the terrible twos, I wonder now if my own boredom with the public schools as a child caused me to want something for him that he didn't really want. He is very athletic, and maybe he would have been happier with more sports and a shallower education. His sporting events away from school created transportation problems, so that if I was tied up he had to take a cab. In public school, he could have just got on the after-school bus like the band members and athletes did when I was a kid. Also in retrospect, he might have preferred the larger crowds n public school. I just assumed that, like me, he would tire of waiting for the slower students to keep up.

I think is a strange outcome of wanting something for your child that you wanted for yourself. He definitely was a privileged child, bu still he wanted more.

[GrandMoM]

BUMP

[Gerish]

Great article - worth the long read. How many of us know children like he describes? Can think of 8-9 myself which is sad.

[Johnbalaya]

btt

[netmilsmom]

Thanks for the ping!
I got really beat up on the last thread (in fact they are still doing it!) so I won't comment on this one.

But you know how I feel!!!!

[Maria S]

"Palatable labels ranging from "high-energy" to "hyperactive" to "temperamental" to "oppositional" are bandied about like personality traits that must be tolerated."

Ummm..."personality traits" such as those mentioned were NOT tolerated when I grew up! After a nasty bout of 'oppositional' or 'temperamental', I found myself wanting to just stand up rather than sit...for about a week, usually. My mama's 'medicine' was stout stuff.