"I am your father, and you will listen to me!"

Started by El Héroe Oscuro May 12th, 2014 9:15 PM
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El Héroe Oscuro

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Chicago
Seen April 10th, 2022
Posted August 21st, 2021
7,237 posts
14.3 Years
From time to time, parents will use the expression "I am your ___ and you will listen to me" as a way in getting their kids to fall in line and do as they ask. However, do you think it's fair for parents to do this? Do you think this is a cop out by the parents because they can't get their kids to listen to them? Or rather when it comes to parenthood, do you think that respect should be automatically given to them, or should it be rightfully earned through their actions? And if you believe that it should be automatically given to them, what age would you say is it appropriate for the child to be independent and not have to cling to every one of their parent's requests?

Personally for me, I think that respect should be earned, not given automatically. However, that can lead to some pretty hairy situations if handled incorrectly. Because of the way society is set up - what with our futures in part being managed by the fiscal actions of our parents - it could lead to some pretty bad repercussions that could bite you in the butt if you cross your parents the wrong way by defying them. That's just my two cents.
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YungKnowledge

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Posted November 10th, 2014
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Agree with the respected being earned because some parents just don't deserved it. If the case if parent or parents has shown that they don't have respected for themselves(going to jail, drug use, and etc.) Like honestly how does a parent that doesn't have respect for themselves excepted to get respected from their child or children?

Nolafus

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I think respect is earned, not given in any situation, and that includes parenthood. However, with parenthood being like it is, you have to screw it up really badly in order not to deserve it. I mean, your parents put their dreams on hold or gave them up completely in order to raise you to the best of their ability, if that doesn't deserve respect, I don't know what does.

However, I think kids should start to make their own decisions when they enter their teens, and then as they get older, more and more decisions would be made up by them. By the time they're eighteen, people should be able to make all the decisions of their life. Parents should still give advice, but the ultimate decision should be with the kid. It's their life, after all.

When it comes to parents like mine, that try to shove a future onto them that they don't like, I don't think the parents should make many decisions. Seriously, it's the kid's life. I don't think parents always know best, and it's up to the kid if it's really right or not.
PairPC sister
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Posted November 28th, 2014
910 posts
12.1 Years
There's no excuse for bad parenting, and to be a parent you need to be a role model to your kids. If they look up to you, they want to please you, they want to do what you say. Parenting is easy you just have to keep on top of it.

Although there are some things that should be ignored. My father for example is a raging homophobe. He can't sit and watch Modern Family because he knows there's a gay couple in the show. So as you can imagine he drilled that hate into me pretty heavily as a kid, and he's a good father so I listened to him. It's not until I entered high school when sex started becoming apparent to me that I started rebelling against him and worked out why he is wrong for myself. I was so hardcore rebellious against my parents I questioned their entire belief system from religion to politics and everything else. It made me an individual and rebellion is a sign of personal growth so when they reach a certain age it's important to let them make mistakes for themselves, but there can't be any hesitation about discipline otherwise how do they ever learn consequence?
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Posted November 25th, 2014
666 posts
9.6 Years
It's a commandment for us to obey our parents. But, I think if the parent is abusive, etc, some rules should be broken. However, that may come to your disadvantage.
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Alexander Nicholi

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It really depends on how it is approached. With my father he'd often utilize such means of assertion as to get me to do what he (or actually his girlfriend) wanted me to do, which were often menial things that served only him for nothing in return. The things he were asking weren't ridiculous, but the manner in which he approached handling it was terribly flawed and bred nothing but dissonance and defiance in me towards his requests. It's why I ended up leaving his ass. :P

The way my mother handles things is oddly similar; however, she uses such a dominating approach to me only when necessary and not at her own selfish whim. Often times she only has to hint at her wanting me to do something and I choose to do it out of my own will, without regard to my personal liking of the situation. I guess this is because my mother and I have a lot more well-founded and stable relationship—one built on trust and give-take—whereas all my father saw my sister and I as was assistants to his serving winch of a girlfriend to keep house for him while he plays Tom Petty on his guitar and watches TV when his not at work or having "band practice" (the quotes signifying it was just a night or two every weekend where he gets high with friends while playing music).

All in all this sort of approach in my opinion is best used when necessary and without malice… like anything lol. You do something right and it tends to work out, no?
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Oryx

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I'm going to set aside instances of child abuse - always in those instances the child is justified in "betraying" the commands of the parents. Please assume all parents I am speaking about from here on out are non-abusive parents.

In instances of normal child-parent relationships, though, I feel like up until about mid-teens, that particular phrase, command without a clear reason, is completely justifiable. There's a reason why minors are not legally allowed to make decisions on their own; even if they feel like they're mature enough, they do not have the full capabilities of assessing risk and overcoming their urges to come to a logical conclusion. Nearly every child thinks they are more mature than they are; you can even see this in children that are just learning to talk, who think they're clever enough to talk their parents out of something because they're big kids now. This trend continues until some point when the general maturity level reaches where the person will be for their adult lives roughly, then plateaus off.

As far as respect being given or rightfully earned, these parents already earned respect from the minute you were born - your mother gave up her body for you for 9 months, probably keeping those marks from your birth forever. Your parents give you a home, asking only a tiny amount in return. They feed you, take you to the doctor, buy you clothing, make sure you get to school and home. Every single day. There is not a day that goes by in a normal parent-child relationship where the parent is not providing something for the child. The entitlement of "you do all this for me but I don't respect you because you didn't earn it" is common, but misguided. Usually it's born of a life where the parent makes their sacrifices expected; instead of talking about how much they do for the child, they just do it and the child starts taking it for granted.

I got a bit off track there I think, but the main point remains - children are under a parent's supervision because they are not very good at judgment calls themselves. Thus, a parent is justified in using their clout as a parent to make good judgment calls on behalf of the child, even if the child doesn't agree, because their job is to look out for their safety and well-being and sometimes that means being the bad guy.

Edit: I just realized the coincidental ending of my post combined with my theme...



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Solus
Seen March 25th, 2017
Posted January 13th, 2017
796 posts
9.2 Years
Honestly, If you can't justify a choice you've made with regards to your child, you've either raised them wrong or it's the wrong call to make.

That said, while I believe one must earn respect, I also know that children are often quick to disregard their parents even if they have proven worthy of respect. Blindly agreeing with someone, even one's parents, is foolish, ignoring them blindly is just as much so.

twocows

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14.2 Years
Yes, ideally parents would be perfect, rational beings that are 100% fair and all of their decisions make perfect logical sense, which they are able to articulate perfectly to their children.

The reality of the situation is that parents are humans, too, and that parenting is very, very hard, especially when you're under a lot of stress for other reasons. I think most parents understand intuitively that it's probably going to be more effective to justify yourself than making an appeal to authority, but things are usually a bit more complex than that.
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Tek

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9.6 Years
Try giving a logical explanation to an average five-year old. She'll probably stop listening halfway through your sentence.


Caricatures aside, the point is that the age of the child is important to consider in more ways than one, as has been pointed out already. But age is not everything, because people develop (or "mature") at different rates. We can use age to guess at a person's inner understanding of the world, and we will often be right. But the underlying principle is developmental "age", and not simply chronological age.


People understand the world in terms of rules and roles before they develop an autonomous sense of self. These "stages" or "waves" of cognitive development (rule/role and autonomous) correlate with authority-based truth and reason-based truth, respectively. Authority claims are actually more valid than rational claims to rule/role minds.






I have seen parents make two major mistakes that cause their children to lose respect for them. One is that when the child begins to develop autonomy, the parent either doesn't notice or, more often, actively resists and tries to suppress this natural and healthy development. The parent tries more and more desperately to enforce their authority, and the child - who is now deriving truth from logic and reasoning rather than conventional authority - can no longer take the parent seriously.



The other mistake I've seen made is for a parent to constantly put a child down, to yell and criticize constantly without making efforts to compliment the child, to consistently show the child disrespect. And then the parent punishes the child for doing what all human beings do: emulating the behavior of the important people in their lives.



EDIT:



While I disagree with twocows that a perfect world consists of purely logical minds, I do think it's important to note that parenting can be very demanding. And the majority of people that I know, parents or not, add a lot of stress to an already difficult situation with a constant negative or worrisome inner dialogue.



I would also point out that poor parenting strategies are passed down from parent to child, and can go unnoticed for many generations.