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The article reminds me of this: "Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but n

• redblacktree 11y ago
  Do you have children? If you don't teach them values, where do they get them from?
  • mhandley 11y ago
    They learn values by the example you set, but that doesn't mean they share your interests.
  • fao_ 11y ago
    Most children learn a lot of habits and values by unconsciously picking them up off their parents. They learn from your actions what is correct and incorrect behavior without you having to directly teach it. Good behaviour is comprised of the union of two sets: behaviour that you allow, and behaviour that you partake in. If these sets overlap then you can be pretty sure that your child will learn 'good behaviour' as defined by you. I would also add that many beneficial social movements favouring equality among humans have been contested by adults who were brought up to share their parents' values. I hesitate to say that most children do not care about colour or sexuality until they are taught by their parents that differences are bad, or see their parents reactions to people who are 'different'.
  • exodust 11y ago
    Distinguishing "enforce" from "teach" might help with answering.
  • abecedarius 11y ago
    Mostly from their peers, it seems, whether or not you try to mold them at home: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nurture_Assumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nurture_Assumption
    • Jonathanks 11y ago
      That's true. Much of their behaviors also seem to come pre-written on their minds. Stephen Pinker talks about it in his book "The Blank Slate - a Modern Denial of Human Nature". Most of parents' efforts seem to leave little impression on the child's nature in the long run. Even the forcefully imparted moral values are held not as innate nature but as second nature which can either break under societal pressure or throw the child into confusion.
  • imgabe 11y ago
    How do you get "don't teach your children any values" from that quote? Seriously?
    • Jonathanks 11y ago
      That should be "don't enforce on your children any values". I mean to criticize virulently demanding that one's children follow a predetermined set of values because their parents hold them to be true, especially when those values are mostly cultural assumptions.
    • redblacktree 11y ago
      Jonathanks said: > Most parents that enforce their own ideals and values on their children are narcissistic. Which I took to mean that they don't agree with enforcing rules (which come from values) on children. I think if you have children, you know that this just won't work. Without rules and boundaries, kids will literally kill themselves.
      • Jonathanks 11y ago
        That's quite true. I now see where the problem comes from. I did not apply the right words to convey my intended message. You can blame me for that. The topic is about raising creative children and I actually intended to criticize imposing ideals and ambitions on children, or forcing them to a religion or cultural practice that is just preferred by the parents but not generally true or acceptable. For example, I have severally witnessed parents coercing their children to take up a career in a particular field without regard to the children's strengths and weaknesses, just because the said fields are appealing to the parents. Some I've seen even threatened to discontinue the children's upkeep should they dissent. I have also seen parents become alienated from their children due to religious differences: the child prefers to make his life more about his service to society through his career but his parents want him to be more religious and devout. Sometimes the parents go against any form of reasoning that conflicts with the tenets of their religion. Such cases are the intended targets of my original comment and the quote I added. Sorry for the confusion.
  • nommm-nommm 11y ago
    I think Jonathanks was referring to the "pray away the gay" type parents or the "I'm disowning you for giving up your religion."
    • Jonathanks 11y ago
      So far, you have gone deeper than what I wrote to correctly guess what I intended. Thanks. I may reword my post to be more context specific. Or, maybe, I'll make a new article explaining my stance in the context I intend.
  • ap22213 11y ago
    I can't speak for the author, but I pretty much raised myself, and I probably got my values from popular culture.
• deleted 11y ago
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• gyardley 11y ago
  I'd encourage you to not make stark black-and-white statements about parenting, or judgements about parents who are doing it differently. I certainly wouldn't go about dismissing a parent's love for their child. In this case, sure, there's almost certainly some children who should be left to develop their own ideals and values as part of maximizing their own potential and finding their own path. There are a whole lot more children who need to be taught some ideals and values, or they'll grow up to be an adult completely without them, and society will be poorer for it. Determining which group any particular child belongs to is the primary caregiver's job, not yours.
  • hhgfhkk 11y ago
    Then you too do not understand love.
  • lawpoop 11y ago
    Really? Even if the parents insist that a child's group is the straight kids, not the gay ones?
    • jacalata 11y ago
      It's pretty clear that the groups being referred to are children who can be left to develop themselves and children who need more guidance, as outlined in the beginning of that paragraph.
  • Jonathanks 11y ago
    My comment was not a blanket generalization the word "Most..." tells. I do not imply that one should leave the child without values but that one should let the child pick up these values in a more natural, guided learning, not in a coerced acceptance of unwritten standards. Let the parents be present to guide them in picking up the right values without forcing anything on them. Let them know the reason why something is more acceptable; don't tell them it's just acceptable and must be followed.
• api 11y ago
  That's beautiful. Thanks.
• chrisweekly 11y ago
  +1 for the apt, beautiful quote -1 for the blanket over-generalization I'm a loving father of two brilliant girls (7 and 9), and while I strive to be a "stable bow", parenting is an ongoing, dynamic and constantly-evolving relationship. And I'll never apologize for trying to instill them with my most deeply-held values and ideals. I try to do so by living and demonstrating these values, and encouraging them to discover their merits for themselves. It's not about merely enforcing rules. But until you find yourself responsible for another human being's very life, making assertions about the nature of parenthood is futile.
  • Outdoorsman 11y ago
    Agreed...I told my 4 children that their mother and I were guided by two principles: 1} That we wanted them to become a "good" person...we let them puzzle out what a "good" person was, to the extent possible, tried to model the behavior we hoped for, and pointed out obvious examples of good behavior in everyday life... 2} That we wished them a "happy" life...to that end we encouraged any interests they expressed, and did our best to share in the joys they discovered for themselves... We exposed them to as many new opportunities and interests as possible, then let them choose which they would like to repeat...this part was by far the most difficult because of varied interests... When there were disagreements between them--sibling rivalry--we encouraged them to solve problems themselves...can't count the number of times we said things like, "You both want to sit in that chair at the same time, but that's not possible...how can you solve this problem?" Parenting is likely the most difficult job on the plant...so far everything seems to be on track...
    • Jonathanks 11y ago
      Good luck with your family. I'm glad everything seems to be on track.
  • Jonathanks 11y ago
    I understand your point. It's a dynamic, lifelong occupation that demands your whole and its demands change with its stages. However, I was not really over-generalizing. I wrote "Most parents..."
• theonemind 11y ago
  The way you describe 'love' there seems romanticized, and it seems odd that you suggest that there is a 'proper' way to love. That seems to me like suggesting there's a "proper" way to be angry. It's an emotion. You might suggest that anger needs to be well-managed to avoid destructiveness, but you wouldn't speak of 'the proper way' to be angry.
  • Jonathanks 11y ago
    Of course there is a proper way to love - to put the interest and development of the loved person in perspective always. That becomes complex as you learn to love every other person in whose life you're invested, and to love humanity in general. The complexity increases as you factor yourself into the whole picture by loving yourself. However, the 'activity of loving' does not occur in those distinct parts sequentially but simultaneously: they all form the activity. Love is not so much an emotion as it is a decision, an activity. It is work in itself, not a feeling. Really, love starts when the feeling diminishes in the face of reality.
• larsiusprime 11y ago
  People who do not give values and ideals to their children leave a vacuum for the culture to fill, which largely speaking consists of: The State: eg "Hey kid, fight this war!" The Media: eg "Hey kid, hate today's designated weirdos!" The Corporations: eg "Hey kid, buy this crap!" The Usurers: eg "Hey kid, enslave yourself in debt!" None of which have a personal relationship with the child or a vested interest in their well being. You may disagree with another parent's values, but at the very least (on average) that other parent is at least sincere and cares about their own kid. And the perennial complaint "but what if someone teaches their kids BAD values" will never be solved. Plenty of parents probably think YOU'RE teaching your own kids poisonous lies just as damaging as you perceive them to be doing. That's just life.
  • NhanH 11y ago
    You have a hidden assumption that the values and ideals of the parents would be different than the State/Media/Corporations/Usurers/Society etc. That might be a shaky assumption to put your argument on.
    • larsiusprime 11y ago
      I don't have that assumption; plenty of people share the values of their surrounding culture. My point is that parents have a direct and specific interest in caring about their specific kids, but the strong powerful influencers out there (advertisers, media, propagandists, politicians) do not. Children are more likely to be perceived as an end in themselves to their own parents, and as simply a means to an end by these other entities. Also: everyone talking about raising their kids with the ideals of critical thinking and of picking their own values: that's still a value that's apparently important enough for you to instill in your child that you went to great lengths to instill it. Something tells me you wouldn't be happy with them embracing an opposing value, like, say, blind adherence to authority figures, and believing everything they read, and letting other people browbeat them and tell them what to do with their lives.
  • Jonathanks 11y ago
    I agree "that's just life". And many parents who think you're doing it wrong believe they're doing it right - by trying to make their parents achieve the dreams they left unfulfilled. That's narcissism. I do not imply that one should leave the child without values but that one should let the child pick up these values in a more natural, guided learning, not in a coerced acceptance of unwritten standards. Let the parents be present to guide them in picking up the right values without forcing anything on them. Let them know the reason why something is more acceptable; don't tell them it's just acceptable and must be followed. Life and human behavior is dynamic so the right way varies with individuals.
• rebootthesystem 11y ago
  This quote only reveals a complete and utter lack of understanding of parenting and child development. I cannot imagine anyone who thinks this to be "beautiful" being a parent or a good one if they are. This quote, and the ideology behind it, are nothing less than disgusting. The parent's job is to lay down a solid foundation onto which a person will be constructed. In some cases the parent is a filter. For example, the vast majority of Muslims are good people, no different from anyone else. Good parenting is what made these children immune to the pulls of derranged radical elements in that culture. Good parenting is what ensures the vast majority of those children cannot be swayed away from being good decent human beings. That's just one example. Many more in history. There's a reason for which all cults try to get to children as early as possible. Parents are the only line of defense. No, that quote is disgusting.
  • Jonathanks 11y ago
    The vast majority of Muslims are good people due to good parenting. I guess the good parents 'did not force' the deranged radical elements of the surrounding culture on the children. Most victims of such sick cultures acquire it helplessly: some parent figure forced it on them in the guise of something - maybe tradition, maybe religion.
    • rebootthesystem 11y ago
      Exactly my point. The whole idea behind "Your children are not your children" is flawed at the core.
      • Jonathanks 11y ago
        The statement doesn't mean you have no guardianship of your children. You do but not an ownership of their future. The next statement, "They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself", explains that, and so does the rest of the quote. I realize we have almost taken the quote out of its context. It talks about the children's future - their dreams and aspirations.
    • aytekin 11y ago
• khnd 11y ago
  - Kahlil Gibran