Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Parents Need The Strength To Set Rules

John Rosemond Charlotte Observe

There I was, walking the sidewalks of a fairly prestigious private school somewhere in America, biding time before a talk I was to give to parents of students, when I walked up behind a youngster of about 13. He was wearing the “uniform” - baggy jeans, sneakers that were fashionably untied and an oversize T-shirt with what looked like the lyrics to a song printed on the back.

The very first word to catch my attention - it sort of leapt out at me, to tell the truth - was “that” word. Clue: In polite company, it is usually identified by its first letter, which is still too explicit for a family newspaper.

I couldn’t help myself. I blurted out, “Oh, no! You’re not actually wearing a shirt with that word on it!” He turned, shrugged his shoulders and said, “Oh well,” and kept walking. He obviously knew the word to which I referred. Therefore, I concluded, he wore the shirt specifically because of that word.

He’s cool, oh yeah. He could care less what adults think. Why should he? He’s not footing the bill.

I stopped dead in my tracks and watched a 13-year-old display of thoroughly irresponsible parenting saunter on. Either his parents know he owns the shirt or they don’t. In either case, they are irresponsible. Either they take notice of what he wears to school or they don’t. In either case, they are irresponsible. And these are not parents who are distracted by more immediate concerns, such as how to feed their children and pay the rent. This young delinquent’s parents have the money to send him to a tony private school. What gives?

Be assured, the problem is not children, but parents; parents who look the other way when their children act or dress like trash; parents who haven’t the courage to make their children conform to family standards and instead allow dress and conduct that is stupid, puerile and/or downright disgusting.

“But I don’t have the right,” some of these parents say, “to establish standards that would make my child stand out like a sore thumb in his peer group!”

To which I reply, the h-word you don’t! Our parents said, “If your friends all jump off a cliff, are you going to follow?” Our parents didn’t care if we were sore thumbs. They couldn’t have cared less if “everybody else” was doing it or wearing it. Thirty to 40 years later, many of the same sore thumbs, now parents, seem resigned to rear lemmings, all the while praying that their lemmings, as teens, are able to resist peer pressure. Hah!

Speaking as one whose parents made me be different, it was definitely not fun. I had to come in early, wear funny clothes and comb my hair like Pat Boone. Partly as a consequence, I took my share of ridicule, and membership in the in-crowd was out of the question. Through no fault of my own, I was a nerd. My parents couldn’t have cared less; therefore, I didn’t bother to complain.

By contrast, all too many of today’s parents want to understand their children, relate to them, empathize with them, feel their pain, want to be their friends.

They fail as parents because they try to be friends, and fail as friends because they don’t have the courage to tell their children what they don’t want to hear.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Rosemond Charlotte Observer