Conservative columnist John Rosemond

[kpmom]

ITA @paganbaby

Boomers of all people should remember how it feels to have an older generation bitch about them.

The WWII & Korea generation couldn't believe that boomers wouldn't happily line up to go to Viet Nam, and that African Americans and women wanted equality. 

Oh, and those hippy dippy clothes and long hair on guys!  The horror!

 

[paganbaby]

24 minutes ago, kpmom said:

ITA @paganbaby

Boomers of all people should remember how it feels to have an older generation bitch about them.

The WWII & Korea generation couldn't believe that boomers wouldn't happily line up to go to Viet Nam, and that African Americans and women wanted equality. 

Oh, and those hippy dippy clothes and long hair on guys!  The horror!

 

Exactly. Even if those criticisms didn't apply to them individually, as boomers they would have heard them and should know better than to dump on an entire generation that way.

ETA: Of course, I was anti-Vietnam, pro-equality, and marched for women's rights, so I wasn't bothered by the criticisms. They were more of a badge of honor. Maybe that's why I remember them.

[JermajestyDuggar]

45 minutes ago, paganbaby said:

This is particularly irksome coming from boomers, who are one of the most coddled of generations. Many had it rough, especially minorities and men who were subject to the draft, but lots of well-off guys found ways around serving in the military. They grew up in a period of prosperity, when higher education was accessible and relatively inexpensive. Lots of their parents followed Dr. Spock's advice to treat their babies as individuals. There was a lot of pressure for mothers who could afford to do so to stay home and focus on their kids.

I say all of the above as a boomer who is profoundly disgusted with many of my age group.

I agree. And it's always the old white male boomer who is not a vet and had a pretty easy life.

[December]

On 3/18/2017 at 9:02 AM, paganbaby said:

I say all of the above as a boomer who is profoundly disgusted with many of my age group.

 

It's very nice to read that!

The common assumption that every generation after oneself is more coddled, entitled, etc. is so ridiculous and shortsighted. Not to mention unproductive. The way that some Boomers refer to Gen Xers and Millennials can be horrible and demeaning, and doesn't seem to get much better as time goes on. Why can't we all just agree that every generation has its own unique challenges and benefits? 

[smittykins]

 I can imagine God Himself saying "Those kids!  I gave them one rule..."

[elvendra]

Wow. The majority of you all must be the younger generation otherwise you wouldn't be spouting such nonsense. He is not saying that parents should never take the time for their child's needs, what he is saying is that the parents need to establish and keep their relationship together and as leaders and teachers of the children and then as a couple, attend to the needs of the children. I can't believe people actually have the presumptuousness to pretend he hates children. lol The parents are the foundation of the family, so yes, they should be first. It is the parents that create a child's psychological stability and putting them at the center of the family basically tells them that the world revolves around them and that isn't good for the child nor for the society that the child will one day be a part of. A child needs a leader and a teacher, not a friend that comes running at every beck and call. If the parents relationship is wrapped around the children, the marriage will suffer. These days, parents bend over backwards to do whatever the child wants and gives them their every whim and fancy. Parents these days are not the authority in their child's life, the child is the authority.....and therein, lies the problem. I think he's absolutely right: the old ways worked better than these broken, new age ways and society is the proof: back in the days of our grandparents and their parents, the family unit was together and kids respected the parents as the leaders and teachers. Today: the family unit is broken, kids don't respect their parents, and society is falling apart. The evidence speaks for itself. I am 31 years old and this new age parenting that people like to believe works, should be thrown out the window. The family structure just might be repaired. A child's sense of security is in the parent's relationship. Why do you think it causes so many problems to a child when the parents fight and argue? I am in my third year of my bachelor's degree in psychology and here is my response to one of the assignment questions:

"The going trend in society is one of the myths from the 50 myths link that our professor provided: "Adolescence is inevitably a time of psychological turmoil" and one that I had believed on the outskirts of my mind for quite some time. I honestly believe that is baloney spread by the psychology field to cover the damage that parents are causing children and have caused for several generations. John Rosemond, a Christian and psychologist who has worked with parents and their families since 1971, said "The field of psychology has caused the most damage to the family unit". That's because, in a nutshell, what they purport is that nothing is the parents fault. It all has to do with "just young age" and what not. Yet, you never heard of all these problems back when parents were actually parents and guided their children in everything (not this garbage of "letting the children make mistakes and suffer the consequences. That is not being a parent and not guiding them), and didn't put children at the center of the family (1800/1900sish). Psychological turmoil is caused by parents spending more time working than they do with their family, is caused by divorce and a child having to run between two homes, is caused by parents not being in a relationship with each other and instead wrap their relationship around the children.....the list goes on and on, yet psychology does not confront these problems. A child raised in a home where the mother and father are the center, leaders, and teachers of the family, they spend most of their time in a relationship with each other so that the children know that their parents are established as their parents and not as their friend.....that is a psychologically stable child. We live in a broken society that psychology is not helping to fix. Behavioral problems are caused from instability in a child's life. There were way more psychologically stable children back in the days when the family unit was a family unit then there are in these days of broken families."

 

[formergothardite]

7 hours ago, elvendra said:

back in the days of our grandparents and their parents, the family unit was together and kids respected the parents as the leaders and teachers

Back in the day my grandmother was raised with an abusive father who also abused his wife and she had no way of escaping. Why not stop glorifying the "good old days". There were no good old days. Every single generation has complained about how kids these days are coddled and don't respect elders.

From the 1600's

Quote

I find by sad Experience how the Towns and Streets are filled with lewd wicked Children, and many Children as they have played about the Streets have been heard to curse and swear and call one another Nick-names, and it would grieve ones Heart to hear what bawdy and filthy Communications proceeds from the Mouths of such...

From the 1800's

Quote

.a fearful multitude of untutored savages... [boys] with dogs at their heels and other evidence of dissolute habits...[girls who] drive coal-carts, ride astride upon horses, drink, swear, fight, smoke, whistle, and care for nobody...the morals of children are tenfold worse than formerly

And there is a long list of these. Every single generation has someone complaining the current generation of parents are raising their kids wrong, created spoiled monsters who are nothing like the respectful kids of the good old days. So while getting all this education you are getting, why don't you spend some time learning about this. 

ETA: My grandmother started smoking at a ridiculously early age of something like 7. And while she knew her dad would practically beat her to death, she was still sneaking out of church and going off to smoke and make out with boys at a young age. And has for respecting teachers, did you never read Farmer Boy or Little Town on the Prairie?

[Palimpsest]

11 hours ago, elvendra said:

Wow. The majority of you all must be the younger generation otherwise you wouldn't be spouting such nonsense. 

Er, not all of us are of the younger generation.  The age range here was between 18 and 70+, the last time I looked.  

Quote

These days, parents bend over backwards to do whatever the child wants and gives them their every whim and fancy. Parents these days are not the authority in their child's life, the child is the authority.....and therein, lies the problem. I think he's absolutely right: the old ways worked better than these broken, new age ways and society is the proof: back in the days of our grandparents and their parents, the family unit was together and kids respected the parents as the leaders and teachers.

Today: the family unit is broken, kids don't respect their parents, and society is falling apart. The evidence speaks for itself.

Don't be ridiculous.  There was plenty of dysfunction back in the days of "our parents and grandparents."   Parenting methods vary today.  And whose society is falling apart (we are an international board, by the way)?  Define "family unit."

What is the "evidence that speaks for itself" of society falling apart, in your view?   

Quote

I am 31 years old and this new age parenting that people like to believe works, should be thrown out the window.  The family structure just might be repaired. A child's sense of security is in the parent's relationship. Why do you think it causes so many problems to a child when the parents fight and argue?

Generalizations, generalizations ...  Just as a matter of interest, as you have attained the ripe old age of 31, are you married and do you have children?  Is there marital strife in your relationship?   And were you raised by parents who used "new age" methods and fought and argued all the time?   Inquiring minds, and all that.

Quote

I am in my third year of my bachelor's degree in psychology

Congratulations.  Let's all play dueling degrees now, shall we?   

Quote

and here is my response to one of the assignment questions:

I read it with interest and slight dismay.  What grade did you get? 

If you haven't submitted it yet, even at an undergraduate level I would recommend citing more references than John Rosemond.  It might also be worth mentioning that some of his claims are quite controversial, for example his advice on spanking and toilet training, to say nothing of ADHD not existing.

You are welcome.

It is rather interesting to have such an old thread dug up.  

[PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea]

On 3/18/2017 at 7:57 AM, Petronella said:

This is still getting praised and passed around in my Facebook newsfeed, and the justification for it I read this morning is that millennials are spoiled and this is the solution. I am just dumbfounded. 

 

I keep running into this "the children are so spoiled, unlike the last generation" from books of all different ages. I most recently saw it in The Feminine Mystique (1962, I think), which blamed the generation of post-war stay-at-home moms for coddling kids. They apparently weren't ready for university; I work a uni and people still say this about the 18-year-olds coming in. I'm also reading Spring Snow by Mishima, about a selfish, entitled, "sensitive" 18-year-old guy, which is partially blamed on his samurai family raising him in the emperor's court instead of training him tough. (The book is from 1968 but is set in 1912).

 

The more things change...

[PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea]

11 hours ago, elvendra said:

 I am in my third year of my bachelor's degree in psychology and here is my response to one of the assignment questions: 

 

 

 

 

I'm a university instructor and my completely unasked-for advice is:

- adopt a more formal tone

- avoid sweeping negative opinions about the entire field of psychology, especially in a psychology class

- do a deep literature review about what the science says works and doesn't work about different parenting styles. We discussed this on FreeJinger somewhat recently; I think it was in the M is for Mama thread. Take advantage of that uni library subscription!

- the point above means that you will have several citations, all peer-reviewed research, none  parenting "experts" who don't cite any real literature. Psychology is a social science, not a collection of conflicting opinions. (Though I'm a physical scientist so of course I think the social sciences have a lot of bias in them!)

And I realize this probably sounds snarky - sorry! I really do want all students to grow and learn how to synthesize data, think critically, and develop good research skills. If you don't believe me, ask the student with the highest mark to show you her assignment. She's probably doing everything I mentioned above.

[Palimpsest]

2 minutes ago, PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea said:

If you don't believe me, ask the student with the highest mark to show you her assignment. She's probably doing everything I mentioned above.

I agree, although I am afraid the response we are discussing might pass muster at Bob Jones University and get an A at any number of unaccredited Christian colleges.

[Pecansforeveryone]

Does this man have any affilatian with James Dobson and Focus on the Family or similar entity, or is he more of an "independent expert?" I agree that all I take away is that he doesn't like children and maybe, possibly  shouldn't have had them. Which as a child-free person by choice it would be wonderful if religious institutions validated and affirmed this choice. 

[Petronella]

I think this means that our discussion is a high hit for John Rosemond on google. Hee hee.

Elvendra, your assumption that anyone who disagrees with Rosemond must be younger than you is sad and misguided for a number of reasons. So is your assumption that anyone who disagrees with Rosemond must instead believe in total indulgence and permissiveness. Believe it or not, moderation and nuance exist.

Signed, 48-year-old mother of two responsible, hard-working, kind teen boys, and wife of twenty years to a kind, supportive, equal partner of a husband. We all four love each other dearly, no ranking or competition necessary.

[EmainMacha]

I'm genuinely surprised that you are a third year psychology student when you appear to disdain your own field and, I'm sorry to be rude, write in an very casual, unacademic way with no sources. I'm so surprised as to think that perhaps you are a troll who decided to spice up your Thursday by resurrecting an old thread and getting FJ all a fluster. But you didn't know that we prefer to have such events on Fridays. Alas no Fundie Friday here.

If you are who and what you say you are then as a woman, wife, mother and daughter I say to you 'catch yourself on you eejit and stop spouting such utter bollocks.

[Georgiana]

13 hours ago, elvendra said:

Wow. The majority of you all must be the younger generation otherwise you wouldn't be spouting such nonsense. He is not saying that parents should never take the time for their child's needs, what he is saying is that the parents need to establish and keep their relationship together and as leaders and teachers of the children and then as a couple, attend to the needs of the children. I can't believe people actually have the presumptuousness to pretend he hates children. lol The parents are the foundation of the family, so yes, they should be first. It is the parents that create a child's psychological stability and putting them at the center of the family basically tells them that the world revolves around them and that isn't good for the child nor for the society that the child will one day be a part of. A child needs a leader and a teacher, not a friend that comes running at every beck and call. If the parents relationship is wrapped around the children, the marriage will suffer. These days, parents bend over backwards to do whatever the child wants and gives them their every whim and fancy. Parents these days are not the authority in their child's life, the child is the authority.....and therein, lies the problem. I think he's absolutely right: the old ways worked better than these broken, new age ways and society is the proof: back in the days of our grandparents and their parents, the family unit was together and kids respected the parents as the leaders and teachers. Today: the family unit is broken, kids don't respect their parents, and society is falling apart. The evidence speaks for itself. I am 31 years old and this new age parenting that people like to believe works, should be thrown out the window. The family structure just might be repaired. A child's sense of security is in the parent's relationship. Why do you think it causes so many problems to a child when the parents fight and argue? I am in my third year of my bachelor's degree in psychology and here is my response to one of the assignment questions:

"The going trend in society is one of the myths from the 50 myths link that our professor provided: "Adolescence is inevitably a time of psychological turmoil" and one that I had believed on the outskirts of my mind for quite some time. I honestly believe that is baloney spread by the psychology field to cover the damage that parents are causing children and have caused for several generations. John Rosemond, a Christian and psychologist who has worked with parents and their families since 1971, said "The field of psychology has caused the most damage to the family unit". That's because, in a nutshell, what they purport is that nothing is the parents fault. It all has to do with "just young age" and what not. Yet, you never heard of all these problems back when parents were actually parents and guided their children in everything (not this garbage of "letting the children make mistakes and suffer the consequences. That is not being a parent and not guiding them), and didn't put children at the center of the family (1800/1900sish). Psychological turmoil is caused by parents spending more time working than they do with their family, is caused by divorce and a child having to run between two homes, is caused by parents not being in a relationship with each other and instead wrap their relationship around the children.....the list goes on and on, yet psychology does not confront these problems. A child raised in a home where the mother and father are the center, leaders, and teachers of the family, they spend most of their time in a relationship with each other so that the children know that their parents are established as their parents and not as their friend.....that is a psychologically stable child. We live in a broken society that psychology is not helping to fix. Behavioral problems are caused from instability in a child's life. There were way more psychologically stable children back in the days when the family unit was a family unit then there are in these days of broken families." 

 

My parents did ALL of this.  As an adult, I had a mental breakdown and found myself completely unable to function.  Luckily, a wonderful therapist was able to work with me to unpack everything.  

What she did WORKED.  What she taught me CONTINUES TO WORK.  

What my parents did?  My therapist's comment was that it's an absolute miracle I don't have debilitating OCD from the immense amount of control and limited amount of freedom over my life that my parents thought was best.  

IN FACT my first college course ever was a sociology course on how such authoritarian parenting can contribute to the creation and toleration of authoritarian states.

Psychologically stable my ass.  I am now, thanks to the wonderful work of people who study these things so that they can help others.  I was absolutely damaged because my parents followed this model, however.  

P.S. The reason you didn't have large amounts of people being diagnosed with psychological turmoil in previous generations is the same reason you didn't have large amounts of cancer diagnoses in the middle ages: it's not that it wasn't PRESENT or didn't harm people, it's that they were very poor at identifying it.  We identify it more readily now, before it gets to crisis mode, which is GREAT...and that also means we diagnose more frequently.  It wasn't that it wasn't happening, it's just that it went undiagnosed.  

[formergothardite]

13 hours ago, elvendra said:

Yet, you never heard of all these problems back when parents were actually parents and guided their children in everything (not this garbage of "letting the children make mistakes and suffer the consequences. T

Do you have citations to prove this? If you look at studies, teens today are doing better than teens in the past. Drug use is down, teen pregnancy is down, drinking is down. and smoking is at historic lows among teens.

Your reply actually reminds me a lot of a paper I wrote my first semester in a community college. I didn't understand that all the propaganda I had been fed wasn't going to be accepted, even at a community college, as proof of anything. I had a very nice teacher who pulled me aside after I turned in the first draft to explain that what I provided was opinions, not facts. You have provided opinions, but not facts to support them. 

ETA: @elvendra, here is an article that addresses the issues with longing for the good old days of parenting. 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/john-rosemond-parent-babble-book-review_b_1965620

[Maggie Mae]

13 hours ago, elvendra said:

Wow. The majority of you all must be the younger generation otherwise you wouldn't be spouting such nonsense.

Define "younger generation." This is the internet, people here are all ages, races, nationalities, cultures, and ability. There is no one generation, and none of of know for sure who is on the other end of the keyboard. For all I know, you are all AI. I do know, however, that you created an account to post this nonsense on a post that's from 2017. 

Quote

 These days, parents bend over backwards to do whatever the child wants and gives them their every whim and fancy.

Do you want to cite your sources? 

Quote

Parents these days are not the authority in their child's life, the child is the authority.....and therein, lies the problem. I think he's absolutely right: the old ways worked better than these broken, new age ways and society is the proof: back in the days of our grandparents and their parents, the family unit was together and kids respected the parents as the leaders and teachers. Today: the family unit is broken, kids don't respect their parents, and society is falling apart.

How is the "Family Unit" broken? We now have families that are non-traditional, but that's a GOOD thing. The "nuclear family" of the 50s was a myth - not everyone wants to be in a one race family with two married parents, a home from better homes and gardens, 2.5 children, and a golden retriever. Honestly, for some people that might be heaven, and they can't attain it because capitalism means that some people will never get out of poverty. And some people don't want that at all. It sounds like hell on earth to me, personally. 

Quote

The evidence speaks for itself. I am 31 years old and this new age parenting that people like to believe works, should be thrown out the window. 

I'm older than you, I also went to college, and I wonder if you've ever left your hometown. I actually doubt you went to college, or were exposed to new ideas or people of different cultures, interests, nationalities, or history. 

 

[Maggie Mae]

13 hours ago, elvendra said:

Today: the family unit is broken, kids don't respect their parents, and society is falling apart.

IF society if falling apart - despite the fact that we live longer, are smarter, have a better quality of life overall than ever in written history, have made huge strides in sanitation, disease, ending/pausing war in the western/developed world, and have the ability and time to create and plan huge projects like traveling to space, building black holes, fighting cancer and other things - it's because of capitalism, not because we realized that not all families look the same. 

13 hours ago, elvendra said:

The evidence speaks for itself.

What evidence? That's just, like, your opinion man. 

13 hours ago, elvendra said:

Yet, you never heard of all these problems back when parents were actually parents and guided their children in everything (not this garbage of "letting the children make mistakes and suffer the consequences.

Oh, yes, back in the day. Let's talk about "back in the day." 

which back in the day do you mean? Do you mean back in the 1700s when people would keep other people as property? When boys would start working as soon as they could walk, and be forced to perform stunts for people so their owner could get the highest price? When women would give birth and move back in to the fields the same day? Or do you mean in, like, 1960s, when teenage boys would be lynched for looking at woman incorrectly? Or perhaps you mean the "good ole days" of the frontier, when  children whose parents couldn't afford them would put them on the orphan train, so the kids could move out west and work - most were beaten when they weren't good enough. There's the wonderful story of the children's crusade in 1212. 

 

[Georgiana]

13 minutes ago, Maggie Mae said:

Oh, yes, back in the day. Let's talk about "back in the day." 

which back in the day do you mean? Do you mean back in the 1700s when people would keep other people as property? When boys would start working as soon as they could walk, and be forced to perform stunts for people so their owner could get the highest price? When women would give birth and move back in to the fields the same day? Or do you mean in, like, 1960s, when teenage boys would be lynched for looking at woman incorrectly? Or perhaps you mean the "good ole days" of the frontier, when  children whose parents couldn't afford them would put them on the orphan train, so the kids could move out west and work - most were beaten when they weren't good enough. There's the wonderful story of the children's crusade in 1212. 

 

Or, in my case, in the 1990's when my parents would threaten to punish me if I refused or failed to interact with other people to an acceptable level because there wasn't much social understanding of how anxiety disorders can manifest in children and they didn't understand that by FORCING me to do things I wasn't comfortable with, they were eroding any sense of autonomy or control over my life that I had...which, of course, tends to make anxiety worse and is why my therapist eventually had to help me re-learn the super-fun skill of "leaving the house".  This wasn't malice, either.  They genuinely believed that they were helping me learn a skill.  We just didn't know at that time that this style of parenting can be deeply damaging.  Now we do.  And when you know better, you can do better. 

My mom has admitted she would do it all differently if she could go back.  She handles my niece much differently and is much more respectful of my niece's feelings.  

[Pecansforeveryone]

There's a big presumption that because fewer couples were formally divorced, that means both parents were in the house. Many couples were "married" in name only due to the father (and ocassionaly the mother) simply up and abandoning their children. My 62 year old friend and her sibilings were shuffled between relatives due to years long abandonment by her mother.  

[Cartmann99]

This thread is reminding me of one of the SAHDs we used to follow. Her name was Gretchen and she and her SAHD friends had formed a group called something like the  Young Ladies Christian Forum. Gretchen and her friends couldn't wait to get married and have as many children as possible, and were always writing about how happy and fulfilling their lives would be because they followed the SAHD plan for success. Anybody that tried to tell them that real life wasn't always as rosy as they thought was ignored.

Long story short, Gretchen discovered that living in a half-finished house with a baby and a husband was a lot harder than her teenage fantasies had led her to believe. 

[formergothardite]

On 10/18/2018 at 12:36 PM, Palimpsest said:

I agree, although I am afraid the response we are discussing might pass muster at Bob Jones University and get an A at any number of unaccredited Christian colleges.

I think you have guessed correctly. @elvendra sounds like she might be a student at a fundie college researching the ebils of modern parenting. While researching she found this thread, wrongly assumed we were a bunch of very young people who would be wowed by her answer and oh so helpful John Rosemond quotes. She has returned and read this thread, but hasn't replied. I'm going to venture a guess she wasn't prepared to actually defend her stance and  is going to quietly slink away. 

The answer she gave was almost certainly accepted at a fundie college that doesn't really want students to delve too deeply into critical thinking and actual research, lest they discover the fundie way isn't really the way that works.