Posted on 01/08/2009 10:07:42 AM PST by GonzoII
- Catholicism.org - http://catholicism.org -
Posted By Sister Maria Philomena, M.I.C.M. On January 7, 2009 @ 11:24 am In Columns, Marriage and Family | No Comments
The police department of Houston, Texas, gave the following ten rules for raising delinquent children.
1. Begin with infancy to give the child everything he wants. In this way he will grow up to believe the world owes him a living.
2. When he picks up bad words, laugh at him. This will make him think he is cute. It will also encourage him to pick up “gutter” phrases that will blow the top off your head later.
3. Never give him any spiritual training. Wait until he is twenty-one and then let him “decide for himself”.
A teenager’s nightmare? Sr. Maria Philomena in now-retired-Lieutenant (NH State Trooper) Kelly’s cruiser. (Sister adds: The funny thing is that I was surprised that the cruiser was the size of a normal car! I’m 5′9″, but somehow I expected the car to be too big. Heroes still loom large! My students took this picture in 2004.)
4. Avoid use of the word WRONG. It may develop a guilt complex. This will condition him to believe later, when he is arrested for stealing a car, that society is against him and he is being persecuted.
5. Pick up everything he leaves lying around — books, shoes, toys and clothes. Do everything for him so that he will be experienced in throwing all responsibility on others.
6. Let him read any printed matter he can get his hands on. Be careful that the silverware and drinking glasses are sterilized, but let his mind feast on garbage.
7. Quarrel frequently in his presence. In this way he will not be shocked when the home is broken up later.
8. Give a child all the spending money he wants. Never let him earn his own. Why should he have things as tough as you had them?
9. Satisfy his every craving for food, drink, and comfort. Denial may lead to harmful frustrations.
10. Take his part against neighbors, teachers, policemen. They are all prejudiced against your child.
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In ONE EASY step: Get rid of the father figure..............the other nine are irrelevant..........
Fixed it.....
A father in the home is not as important as many conservatives think IMO. Some research (cited by Judith Rich Harris in "The Nurture Assumption") finds that children growing up with a mother who is widowed but was married to the father turn out about as well as children growing up with married parents. My wife and I have the sames hopes for our three young children, and if I died, I don't think they would turn out much differently.
I think the main reason kids from married two-parent families do better is that their parents are different kinds of people on average -- more educated and responsible. Their genes are passed on to their kids.
It may also come down to Mom’s attitude. Even if dad has passed on, if Mom speaks well of him then that makes a difference. OTOH if Mom is divorced or just got knocked up, and Dad is referred to as a mere sperm-donor and checkbook, the kids will pick up on it.
When a father (or mother) dies, his presence is often magnified by who he was and by his wife and other family members that knew him and knew how he would respond to things when he was alive. The issue is that death does not remove a father from the family, not only for spititual but for psychological reasons as well. What removes a father from a family is the father’s apathy or a departure and absence forced by the mother.
We adopted our daughter from a dysfunctional single-parent madhouse. She is an even better student and, I think, better human being than our biological children. Meanwhile, her siblings back home are following in their mama's sorry footsteps. It's clearly not nature that is making our society go downhill, it's (lack of) nurture.
Sadly, alot of parents follow all these “rules” and don’t understand why their kids are self-absorbed, arrogant, disrespectful little brats.
There is indeed a difference in a family with no dad due to divorce or never married, and a family in which the father has died.
The kids know the difference.
Those Texas Troopers sure have some spiffy uniforms!
My ex wife must have read this two decades ago, becuase she has followed it very closely, a major reason for her becoming my ex.
That right there is a MAJOR factor for successful child rearing! Congrats.
Y’all are talking about me. My father died when I was 5. That event helped profoundly to shape the person I am today. But from my earliest memories I always understood that he did not leave intentionally or willingly. While I had to learn to deal with both the sorrow and confusion my loss caused, I never had to deal with anger at either of my parents for putting me in that situation. I feel very sorry for children who lack that consolation.
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