When you have a daughter....

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It has been shown that girls who don't have close relationships with their fathers tend to be more promiscuous, among other things.

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My father is a very cold, authoritarian type of parent. He was too over-protective and restrictive, while not building a relationship with his children so that we would respect his authority. As soon as his children became older, we all rebelled, and his only strategy was to try to come down harder on us. Eventually this stopped working altogether, as we soon discovered that it wasn't worth trying to live up to his high standards in order to retain a few privileges here and there (that could be taken away for the smallest of infractions). He showed no respect for us, so we showed no respect for him.

I have two sisters. One became pregnant at 15 and now has a six year old son. The other became pregnant twice, but lost one of the babies and gave up the other for adoption. They both barely graduated from high school. One now works for minimum wage in a book store, the other finally became a hairdresser after working at McDonalds for years.

I'm convinced that had my father acted more like a parent rather than a drill sergeant, things would have turned out differently for my sisters.

Get to know your kids, and be reasonable in how you deal with them. Give them some credit for being able to make decisions and respect them. Otherwise they'll eventually turn on you and your ability to have a positive impact on their lives will be gone.

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You're talking extremes that you went through, but I don't think your particular situation is as analogous to what the OP is talking about as you seem to think it is.

I had an authoritarian father too, by the way, probably more authoritarian than yours, who built up zero relationship with me, so I know where you're coming from on that. And I've got my own set of very real problems from that. But whereas his mistakes taught me some things to avoid, that doesn't mean I have confused having strong standards or being strict with a lack of respect, or love, for your children, nor do I find giving kids whatever they want, or whatever other kids have, to have the slightest bit to do with how much you love them.

All fanaticism is bad, but reacting to it by pulling too far in the other way isn't the opposite thing, but the SAME thing. How many people hated their fathers or thought their parents were stupid when they were younger, maybe "rebelled" a lot, but then grew up to be them? They may have thought they went far out of the loop, but they never took a single step outside it; even their rebellion was completely of a piece with it.

Balance is nearly always somewhere in the middle. And it's rarely reacting against something or burning it down; nor is it fearfully stepping back from the whole ordeal. It's usually scrapping the easy comforts of fixed, rigid ideas and trading them in for moderate, clear, humane thinking, and actually listening to the world and oneself instead of rejecting both and chosing prejudices and certainties instead.

Neither excessive authoritarianism nor permissiveness are going to result in a happy life or particularly well-adjusted kids. Nor is fear of being either authoritarian or permissive to different degrees at different times a healthy attitude. Life, and parenting problems, won't be solved by dashing fearfully into the rabbithole of either extreme, but comes down to honestly evaluating individual situations day by day. And, unfortunately, not always making the choices most desired by our kids, or anybody else.

Heck, someone's got to be making the decisions in a family. And they should be adult decisions. The family should not be run by the kids, or, god forbid, the knucklehead ideas or enthusiasms of their friends.

[Gunny Highway]

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You're talking extremes that you went through, but I don't think your particular situation is as analogous to what the OP is talking about as you seem to think it is.

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I wasn't talking about the OP's thing at all. The thread had kind of gone off on a parenting tangent so I just further hijacked. I was just curious what people thought.

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I was responding to Hopey's post, not yours.

[Gunny Highway]

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I had an authoritarian father too, by the way, probably more authoritarian than yours, who built up zero relationship with me, so I know where you're coming from on that. And I've got my own set of very real problems from that. But whereas his mistakes taught me some things to avoid, that doesn't mean I have confused having strong standards or being strict with a lack of respect, or love, for your children, nor do I find giving kids whatever they want, or whatever other kids have, to have the slightest bit to do with how much you love them.

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I had an authoritarian father but not at all cold or distant. He wasn't excessively brutal or anything. I was really just comparing a balance of two parents with very differing styles to that of two parents that are both nearer the middle. And whether one way might be better than the other. Some thing like this:

0____________________________0


vs.

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Both are balanced but different.

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See above.

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This comes from the perspective of a recent high school/college student.

First, I think it is important to instill a sense of parental expectation for the child to earn good grades. Most children do not like dissapointing their parents. If children know you will be dissapointed by them earning bad grades they will be more likley to work hard in school.

Expensive rewards are unneccisary. Recognition of hard work is important though. Even though my father had a very lucrative job, I was expected to get good grades and I did. After my good report card my Parents would buy me pizza or take me out to dinner. Although this was not a large gift, the recognition was benificial.

About the text messaging. I think it is important for parents consumption and purchasing of items to be reflective of what they think their children should purchase. If parents buy expensive clothing, drive expensive cars, or have expensive gadgets, I think this value of material wealth is reflected onto children.

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This comes from the perspective of a recent high school/college student.

First, I think it is important to instill a sense of parental expectation for the child to earn good grades. Most children do not like dissapointing their parents. If children know you will be dissapointed by them earning bad grades they will be more likley to work hard in school.

Expensive rewards are unneccisary. Recognition of hard work is important though. Even though my father had a very lucrative job, I was expected to get good grades and I did. After my good report card my Parents would buy me pizza or take me out to dinner. Although this was not a large gift, the recognition was benificial.

About the text messaging. I think it is important for parents consumption and purchasing of items to be reflective of what they think their children should purchase. If parents buy expensive clothing, drive expensive cars, or have expensive gadgets, I think this value of material wealth is reflected onto children.

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Agreed. One of the hardest parts of parenting for a great many people is that they simply are nowhere up to the standards they set for their kids. So their parenting becomes, "Do as I say, not as I do."

And, kids not being stupid, lose enormous respect for their parents when they see that they can't even uphold the standards they profess to believe in, and often don't even try.

Kids will learn from role models, good or bad. If you want your kids to be shallow, be shallow yourself. If you want them to be insufferable snobs, be sure to be one. If you want them to unappreciative of anything less than designer goods, be sure to sneer at same yourself. But if you want them to listen to you, listen to them. If you want them to behave well, behave well yourself. If you want them to understand the value of improving your mind, don't sit in front of the t.v. all day. If you want them to learn the value of self control, show a little discipline yourself.

Parents often talk the talk and don't walk the walk. But one of the hardest things about having kids is doubtless that you really need to grow up yourself. Kids will always come up with their own flaws, but they'll inherit almost every one of yours if you don't clean up your own act.