It really does.
This is what no angry and/or punitive father either could or would articulate : that they are trying to teach you self-discipline because it really does make life easier.
From the victim – ahem – the child’s point of view, all this shoulder to the grindstone shit is just an excuse for one or more adults to make them suffer. And what makes that even worse is that the suffering comes with criticism for being lazy, weak, or the like.
Well gee, Dad, either you need to teach me these things, or you get to be mad at me for not knowing them already, but NOT BOTH.
If you designed a system to make sure your kid is a loser, it would look just like that. It teaches the kid that hard work is a pitiless villain and self-discipline is a synonym for abuse and both of those things are to be avoided like the plague because that’s the only way to even preserve your own identity against the parent(s) who are trying to overwrite it with their own idea of who you should be.
If you’re a parent who thinks this might apply to you, I ask you to do this simple exercise – imagine your child is absolutely perfect in your eyes. Does absolutely nothing to make you mad. Imagine that they are the exact child you want them to be all possible ways.
Now tell me : does this vision make you happy? Or anxious? Does life seem like it would be better that way, or do you feel a rising panic like that would somehow be very very wrong. Even though, by definition, everything is as right as it can be.
If it makes you happy. great.
But if it makes you anxious or angry or restless or agitated or anything like that, ask yourself why. How could that scenario possibly evoke negative emotions? What could possibly be so wrong?
I think if you are honest with yourself, you will find that it was never really about teaching the kid(s) anything. It was about having someone to abuse. Someone to hurt who could not fight back and therefore was a safe target for your impotent rage. Someone you can violently dominate whenever you are feeling inadequate.
Now does that sound right to you? Remember, you are supposed to love and potect your kids. You’re supposed to protect them from the bogeyman, not BE the bogeyman.
I am not saying you don’t love your kids. I am sure you do. I am sure they are the most important thing in your life and you would do anything for them.
I’m just saying one of those things might be getting yourself some therapy so you can learn to deal with your issues in a way that doesn’t hurt the people you love the most in this world or the next.
I’m sure you have your reasons for being so angry.
But there’s no excuse for taking it out on the ones you love. Right?
Well that went in an interesting direction. Pretty sure I just worked out some of my issues with my father.
Whatever works, man, go with it, I guess.
Back to the self-discipline thing. From the kids points of view, there is no benefit to hard work and doing the things their parents want them to do. It’s a total liability.
What the parents know but can never explain is that things get easier the more you do them. So if it’s something you will need to do in life, practicing it beforehand makes sense. Get some practice in before you have to do it for real as an adult.
Like budgeting. It’s not about spending your money the way your parents would. It’s about getting the most of what you want out of your money.
But more importantly. you get used to overcoming yourself in order to do things you want to do but don’t feel like doing.
And that’s like, the most important skill in the world.
Seriously. Developing that skill is the only path to truly growing up. And that’s not all. Like all forms of self-discipline, it makes life a lot easier.
Just imagine how nice it would be not to have to struggle with yourself to get things done any more. Instead of having to drag yourself to work every morning, you would just go. If there was some unpleasant task ahead of you, there would be no procrastination and no inner waffling. You would just do it and then it would be done.
In essence, it’s about making yourself subject to your own will. Like I keep saying, doing what you want to do instead of what you feel like doing.
Those are not the same thing. You can want to do things you do not feel like doing. Or at the very least, you can want the results of doing the thing you don’t feel like doing.
And seeing as you are no longer an infant, nobody is going to come along and do it for you. It’s up to you. You know what you want. So it’s up to you to get it.
And that’s not a punishment. It’s life. It’s no more a punishment than the fact that you have to pick up food and put it in your mouth in order to eat it is a punishment.
It’s just how life works.
And you are free to choose whether or not you will continue to wait for someone else to see to your needs and desires so you don’t have to do it. You can keep that up until the day you die if you want to. Nobody can force you to grow up.
All anyone can do is tell you that you will be, legit, a hell of a lot happier once you learn to overcome yourself and get things done.
And that is all our parents, in their clumsy but well intentioned way, have been trying o tell us all these years.
Turns out they actually knew what they were talking about.
Who would have guessed?
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.