I read with great interest the article “Parents should talk less, take charge more, thank you” (First Person, Janine Wood, Feb. 11).
After 10 years of being a nanny, I can say with confidence that this article is right on the money.
No, I don’t have children of my own yet, but I’ve raised enough of other people’s children to realize that we are in deep trouble if this is the generation we are raising to be our future leaders.
What has become of parents and children?
Does society expect me to throw away all the values my parents taught me and raise one or more of these “on-demand children” who are not cute, but obnoxious?
Will my child fit into this world if he/she isn’t overindulged?
What’s going happen when I don’t drop everything and overexplain something to my child?
What today’s parents don’t realize is that society isn’t interested in your children like you are.
When I’m at the local coffee shop and I hear or see you allowing your child to use his or her “negotiation skills” to undermine you, I don’t think your child is clever. I think you don’t have the “parenting skills” to say no to the overindulged monster you created.
I see a parent who has no clue how to make your child behave. I just want my coffee, not a life lesson from a spoiled 3 year old and his equally overrated, self-important parents.
Christi Raymond
Oak Park
Learn the word `no’
Amen (“Parents should talk less”)!
Let me first say that I do not have children of my own, so I would not purport to know how to raise them. However, I too, have been subject to the public learning experiences these parents feel so obligated to provide. Does every single outing have to be an opportunity for enrichment?
Recently in our local coffee shop, there was a young woman with three little girls (probably ages 3-4). Maybe one of them was her own.
The little girls started to argue over which dolls they were going to play with. When one of them pouted to her mother about not getting her way, the woman responded, “Use your conflict-resolve skills.” I nearly fell off my chair! What the heck does that mean?
I agree with the article 100 percent. They are children. They need guidance and sometimes they just need to hear the word “No.”
Karen L. Dabek
Arlington Heights
Natural instinct
I’m sure [Wood’s] article has generated a great deal of e-mail and I’d just like to add mine.
I am a 55-year-old professional with a marvelous 5-year-old son with a tremendous curiosity for living and learning.
My wife and I speak to him constantly, explaining all sorts of things about how the world works (and doesn’t) and why trans-fatty acids, sulfites, nitrates, child abductors and nuclear weapons are bad for you. This seems as natural to us as breathing and contributes to our son’s intellectual growth and imagination in more ways than we could ever have imagined.
I consider it mere folly to so soundly criticize the “experts on child rearing” who are, in fact, telling us to talk more to our children.
Hurray for the experts! Parents are listening and talking and our kids are responding and growing.
Active dialogue is the foundation of imagination, creativity, problem-solving and understanding; traits all too lacking in this world.
Dr. Terry Fotre
Woodside, Calif.
Old-school parents
I have just read “Parents should talk less.” What a laugh it gave me. It was as though I had written the article myself.
My husband and I are always raising our eyebrows at people in stores who insist on having a discussion with their children on the rights and wrongs of everything.
If our child did not make a quick decision on what he wanted when we were out, on the rare occasions we gave him a choice, we made it for him and he had to lump it.
We are also of the old school of “Because I said so.”
We all have to make our own decisions eventually, and being told what to have and what to do early on doesn’t seem to have affected me or my husband adversely in any way.
Let’s hear it for the “Shut up and do as you are told” parents!
Lynn Dipple
Winnetka
Out of sync
The Feb. 11 piece by Janine Wood (“Parents should talk less”) was out of sync with much of the rest of theWomanNews section. I was very disappointed to read such a judgmental piece.
While [Wood’s] underlying point may have some validity, the means in which she skewed the article was highly derogatory and inappropriately harsh toward parents who are certainly looking out for the best interests of their kids.
Cynthia Grant
Chicago
Traditional approach
Oh, how I longed for a nuclear weapon like yours (Louise Kiernan, “OK, Mr. Fixit, the cat is out of the bag,” Feb. 11)!
Instead, I was forced to broadcast Mr. Fixit’s delinquency in a more traditional way: Everyone we dined with, visited or simply bumped into on the street was treated to an unforgiving, albeit amusing, one-woman production of life in the condo with a hole in the wall.
One month ago (13 months after Mr. Fixit “broke ground”) repairs were completed.
We are engaged to be married in September–I am beginning to wonder whether I must rethink this union.
Thanks for the great column!
Kelly Fallon
Chicago
