I think I recently ran into her and her daughter in a store. I was so embarrassed by her kid screaming and yelling obscenities at her mother that I had to leave the store. This mother acted like she couldn't hear it and did absolutely nothing to correct it.

I have to admit that my kids, all three of them were always perfect when we went out. People would stop by our table in a restaurant and tell us how well behaved our children were. Once in while I'd just say, "We spank them a lot".

Hi, K,
May I say that the original story sounds to me contrived and fake. At first I suspected just a poor writer (and thus a poor thinker). More careful reading convinced me that the piece is fictional and not a description of a real life experience. What do you think?
I probably said it here before, but cannot resist repeating: parenting, teaching students and managing people are the three most important (and closely related) human activities. Would you agree?
All the best to you.

I don't see a problem with giving children choices. Treating a child with respect -- treating him or her how I would wish to be treated -- is a much more valuable lesson in my eyes than teaching, "I am the boss and you will obey my demands on every insignificant issue immediately and without question." Of course, the latter does prepare a child to be an obedient slave to society, and an authoritarian dictator to his or her own children.

Mom lost on her first reply. She agreed to multiple statements in one.

"We pretty much let our daughter do whatever she wanted as long as it was not unsafe." I agree with this 100%. Letting children make their own decisions and take responsibility is so important to their development.

I sat at a blackjack table and lost a lot of money. The guy next to me won a lot of money. I want my money back because it isn't fair. The fact that my actions created the imbalance is irrelevant... I think someone should slap me now!

Seriously:
Each of us is born with an opportunity to make the most of our lives. Some do and some squander that opportunity along with any progress they do make. That is life. Learn to live with it. Teach your children well.

Mom lost this argument long before the girls were 6 years old. This is not new in their home. One day, when my daughter was about four she came from school declaring for Mondale-Ferraro. "No guns in space," she said. I did not argue politics with a four-year old. I was happy enough that she was aware of the election and had a slogan to go with it. The point is, she did not get that idea at home. In this story, the idea that rich people should share with poor people did originate in that home, as did all of the other problems.

Every home is different. In ours, bargaining and negotiating were part of the conversation. On the other hand, no argument was ever about candy because there wasn't any. She had to go outside the home to get it.

We pretty much let our daughter do whatever she wanted as long as it was not unsafe. We even had a cartoon from the _New Yorker_ on the fridge, "NO, you cannot camp out overnight in Central Park."

Kids need to know where they stand.
Calvin: I'm going to fantastically rich. But it won't change me.
Dad: Too bad. That was our last hope.
Calvin: You're going to be lonely in that nursing home.
Dad: Good, then maybe I can finish reading this book.

We went skating all over the Michigan State campus and ate chili cheese dogs afterward. That and crossing the Red Cedar at the falls were something of a short tradition for a few years. Enjoy them while you can, they grow up so fast...

No, they're an investment. They cost you something in the beginning for a greater return down the road... Just wait until they're 30 and still running home to libtard mommy to solve their problems, and she willingly does so.

Mommy, I got arrested because my boyfriend was making meth in the garage of the house you gave to me a few years ago for my 25th birthday, and I need 750,000 for bail, plus they're going to confiscate the house and burn it down, so I need you to buy me another one (and it would be better if it were bigger so more of my friends can live with me), and give me bail money and another 250,000 to hire a lawyer to beat this charge... because I don't deserve it and everyone is unfair to me. And if you don't, I'll hate you!

I have SEEN this ploy... and I've seen parents fall for it.

"Take to the bit." You must have horses.

So much of this is like how we train (or fail to train) our horses. Working with horses certainly helps people learn how to deal with children. It did for me, anyway. That lady needed to own a pony when she was, herself, six years old.

Oh, boy, does this sound familiar.
JFK Democrat (Not a socialist bone in my body) but the desire to somehow find "fairness" has usurped "justice" in so many parts of our lives.

Saw way too much fairness in public school teaching as a teacher.

Then what if you lay down the law ("You will come in this house now!") and the child tells you "No, I'm going to play some more", and you go to discipline the brat, and the neighbor calls CPS on you because you are being too harsh with your child, and not letting them grow up having a free choice... Worse, you're a violent child abuser, and should be arrested, because your children are endangered by your presence.

Used to be... Kid acts too big for his britches, the parent would dust them off, and child would learn an object lesson - you break the rules, there will be consequences. Now that's felony child abuse. You want to pay 5 grand in fines, go to jail, then to get your kids back from the moocher playing foster home, go to another 5 grand worth of mandated parenting classes, to adapt to doing what your child tells you they're going to do? And the kid learns the object lesson - I can always get everything my way, and if not I'll call someone and snitch you off, and you'll go to jail!

she shouldn't be feeding sugar to the kids in the first place. and i suspect her mother wasn't a bleeding heart liberal either. since she thinks her mother was great she should learn from her or is it to late for her.

Building implies producing, not mooching. Maybe they could go to the candy store and tell the shopkeeper that because they lost their candy (they have the need), and he has more than them (he has the ability), he is required to give them as much candy as the feel they *need*. And he can feel good because he provided relief and welfare to those with less than he.

Sometimes liberalism backfires and they end up with Alex P Keaton children...little suit wearing republicans. hehehe

hahahahha can you imagine baking cookies together and then telling her she didn't make the cookies? tough cookies, I guess
better yet, make the cookies and start taking them away from the cookie sheet: this much for taxes, this much for cookies in your retirement years...

Quote:
-------------------------
“Mom,” my daughter said, “people without money need help, and people with money need to help them.”

“Yes, that’s right,” I said.

“Well, I don’t have money, and you do, so you need to help me and buy this.”

A perfectly well-reasoned, thought-out argument.
------------------------


In what world is that a "perfectly well-reasoned, thought-out argument"? Oh in the world of no self responsibility.

Very sad.

She just needs to apply liberal logic more consistently. When her kid complains about having to share her candy, tell her "That's not really your candy, honey. You didn't build it."

Well, if you think about it, babies are parasites in the sense of the definition of the word. I don't mean that in a bad way, I was very happy to have my little parasite. They have a built in method to survive, cry and cry and cry until they get what they need. Their cuteness is how they protect themselves and get what they want. But, they are helpless infants, so they do what they are built to do to survive. As they get older, they need to be constantly taught that they have abilities and they need to use those abilities to fill their needs and they will not always be helpless infants. This lady is clearly keeping her kids in the parasitic stage way, way too long. Some kids find their own way out of it, but many do not.

tell them what their children can eat for lunch, how to run their business, what additives must be in the gas they use, what they can and cannot do with their land, who they can hire, what size doorways they have to have in building a house or remodeling, told how they're ruining the earth so they should have to pay a tax with a made up concept of currency as in "carbon currency," submit to roadside searches...

well I was being facetious, but for the sake of argument, I think the left wing treats adults like children. We have to manage their retirement, make them have insurance they may not want, tell them where to park, what they can and cannot say, give them free phones...do I need to go on?

well there you go.

She might as well have said, I'm an alcoholic and it's ruining my liver. That's not fair, I like being an alcoholic...

Most children are born barbarians.
In order to teach them about becoming civilized humans you begin by teaching them inner boundaries...right/wrong, good/bad, food/poison, etc. .
This woman has made the mistake of teaching her children "outer boundaries" so that they will never understand the basis of limits and that other people aren't the means to their ends.
She is raising spoiled rotten brats and she needs to set firm limits on her own parenting behavior.

Yeah! Right on! Wait until those girls are teenagers!
Does that libtard think she's having problems now?