Chapter Three: How to Raise Children to Become Excellent Assembly Line Workers:
Do not encourage autonomy or personal responsibility.
Keep children dependent on you as their moral compass. Enforce this by standing fully erect, with hands on hips, and using the word "punishment" a great deal. Establish yourself as the feared authority with powers well beyond what the child could ever hope for.
You will know that you are being punitive enough if your children consistently practise the following behaviors:
Children:
a) Furtively engage in a negative behavior so their caregiver doesn't notice.
b) When someone gets hurt; they immediately claim to have been out of the country at the time and there's no way that you could associate them with the incident.
c) When stealing property or candy they adamently refuse to take responsibility.
d) When allowed to eat more than concentration camp rations: they fully believe that their caregiver is being manipulated and taken advantage of. Children must never trust their own instincts or bodily signals.
e) The child accidentally falls down or bumps self: immediately they ought to cry their loudest, teariest tears and pin the blame on which ever child is within the immediate periphery.
f) One should hear children practise the words "allowed" or "not allowed" as often as possible.
g) At every possible oppurtunity, youngsters should tell on other children.
Tattle your face off.
The worse your peers look, the better you will appear.
Now, if you have a secret lifelong dream of being a drill sargaent, a prison guard, or a power-hungry mall security guard, then this parenting style is perfect for you. For the first ten years or so of parenting, you will be very, very busy growing extra eyes at the back of your head, handing out punishments, and reinforcing your child's belief that its a dog-eat-dog world out there. The home is no place for your child to feel safe or to tell the truth, but more of a training ground for the tough world out there where its strictly "survival of the fittest".
When they enter the teen years, you will have to try and figure out a way to stand taller, look tougher, and yell louder. Never give children the impression that they can be trusted.
Always assume that they are here to make you look bad.
6 comments:
Hee, hee.
I'm guilty of a lot of that lately. I decided today that it's February's fault. Can I do that? We've been cooped up WAY to much and our nerves are shot. I'm being bossy, our oldest is bossing the youngest, the youngest is bossing her pretend cat. Lovely.
Time for some fresh air!
-Heather
Oh, and I forgot to mention that once children develop fantasies of felines.... recovery is hopeless.
Spring is coming Heather! Soon we can unfold the strollers, greet the neighbors, and ungrit our teeth.
I am so glad to be back. I've missed your words of wit and wisdom.
I was intending to catch up on my entire blogroll but it's taken me an hour to read every word you've written since I took myself off to my winter cave. You are wonderful and I shall tell everyone who complains at my continued absence that ' It's Joyce's fault'. x
I do always assume that they are here to make me look bad. So far they haven't let me down.
If I hear "So burn!" one more time, I am going to...well I don't really know what I am going to do, but the kids won't forget it.
Joanne
It's the hardest job in the universe to train your offspring to be successful, polite, courteous, intelligent, charming, and witty by the time that they become adults because you know full well that if you actually succeed...
everybody else will hate them!
Post a Comment