Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Letting Kids Make Excuses

... is a recipe for raising underachieving kids.

I grew up with a disadvantage or two. Mine were health-related. Whatever they were, my parents never, ever let me use them as excuses or complain about them. They had no patience for that at all.

Like everyone, our kids had their own share of headwinds. We never let them use their problems as excuses, either. The end result was four kids who are capable of dealing with life. Sometimes they sling blame, but not often and rarely in front of us.

I think that's what bothers me the most about political campaigns. I hate the speeches where some dingledork or dingledorkess talks about "the family, sitting around the dining room table, trying to figure out how to pay their bills." Geeze, man, sometimes is rough. Turning to politics to solve things isn't the answer. The answer is in the mirror.

Dittos for the 1619 Project from the NYT. That's where the Newspaper Of Broken Record is trying to tell us that America was founded on racism and slavery. What's the outcome going to be? It's just a pile of excuses for people to whip out every time they fail or don't feel like trying. Jordan Peterson had a great interview with Jamil Jivani that addressed this very issue.


Jamil saw that in his own life. While he was grasping for excuses, he failed or didn't even try. When he took responsibility for his life, he went from illiteracy to Yale. He mentions "learned helplessness" which is just what the dominant culture, read: Secular Left, is trying it's best to teach us all.

Sad.

2 comments:

Travis said...

I always laugh at the whole "family struggling to pay the bills" schtick. Maybe the struggling family should consider cancelling the Netflix subscription or buying non-designer brand clothes before running to the government for taxpayer funded "assistance"? Particularly considering families have far fewer children today than a few generations ago, and wealth and opportunity has never been as wildly available and accessible than it is today.

K T Cat said...

I used to shop at Goodwill for our kids' clothes. It made sense. A child can only wear size 2T for a short time. It's not like the donated clothes were ragged.