@Mame,
Mame wrote:
Instead of arguing about the meaning of 'special' why not just address the topic? I think we all know what 'special' means.
Generally speaking, todays parents seem to focus so much more on their children than my and my parents' generation. They are helicopter parents; they book them in lessons 5 nights a week; they chauffeur them around from playdate to lessons to playdate; their children are stellar, of course, in school and extracurricular activities; they ACT like their children are MORE special than anyone else's kids. They allow them to 'be' themselves without any consideration to other people - I see more kids having hissy fits in public today than ever before. Many of the children portrayed in commercials are brats, demanding, acting out, berating or sneering at their parents. This is a reflection of what's really going on in society. That's the point I think Chai was trying to make. What makes your kids so special that he has license to be a brat, intrude on someone else's space, invade your privacy and quiet? They're not being disciplined because their parents think their kids are so 'special', that they deserve the right to be whoever and whatever they feel like. It's a kid-focussed society right now, and the pendulum will eventually return to centre.
That is very close to my meaning mame, and what I believe GC was saying.
This part especially rings true...
What makes your kids so special that he has license to be a brat, intrude on someone else's space, invade your privacy and quiet? They're not being disciplined because their parents think their kids are so 'special', that they deserve the right to be whoever and whatever they feel like.
Related to that, I have seen the attending increase of adults of a certain age that were these children, who still feel they are entitled to being the center of the universe.
Perhaps the pendulum will begin to swing in the other direction, as these people, or their children most likely, get SO self absorbed that the attitude will be "I'm the important one, I've always been the most important one. These children are here to continue to satisfy MY needs, not the other way around. I'll be the one to whine about the slightest inconvenience, and they can just accept what is left."
Will this be a good thing? Not once the pendulum swings all the way, but at some point there will be balance.
Set, you're reading along...is it not true that at various times in history the value, importance placed on children has varied widely?
I mean, if there was a 50/50 chance your child wasn't going to live to see 1 yr, why invest everything in each one?
IMO, in the big picture of human history, it has been shown time and again how little value a particular person has.
During the Black Death, what was it, something like 50% of Europe died? I remember sitting there and letting that sink in. Anyone of European heritage, alive today, are here because the the fluke that someone along the way didn't get the plague. The people that didn't die then weren't born with some specialness, except they were either resistant to the disease, or through pure chance, was born somewhere the plague was not that heavy.
The fact many of us, or our parents, or children are/were around was a mere crap shoot.
Maybe you are I are alive today because our great great great great grandfather, who was a vile serial killer, sadist, rapist, etc. wasn't caught, or wasn't caught in time before he got his wife, sister, daughter, neighbor or complete stranger pregnant, and that woman didn't miscarry or induce abortion.
So much for being special.