On raising children with ethics / a bit of geography

[moimeme]

I also believe that the responsibilty to ensure society re-discovers a focus on ethics and moral behavior lies firmly in the hands of moms and dads everywhere.

 

I'd agree with you, Curt, but for this: Moms and dads are moms and dads by virtue of biology. Becoming a parent doesn't make one wiser or better able to deal with one's own issues. In fact, it often makes for tired, stressed, people who have less, rather than more, time to develop their own sense of morality and ethics.

 

Large numbers of moms and dads out there have their own troubles or have not had the upbringing they needed so cannot possibly be expected to pass on ethics. and morals. It would be nice if parenthood conferred that sort of wisdom on people but it just doesn't happen.

 

I still think people should be licensed to have children, and should have to attend a parenting course in order to get the license. Then, maybe parents could be expected to do all that's right but right now, parents are exactly the same flawed, troubled humans they used to be - just with kids.

[Curt]

I can completely agree with the idea that we have a society that includes a number of people who are not necessarily "glowing examples" of moral and ethical conduct. I also agree that the reasons for this being the case are as vast as the ocean. Some individuals may not be the most ideal examples of same, to either the adult population of which they are members, or the youth population of which their children claim membership.

 

Nonetheless, this does not afford them the right to abdocate their responsibilities to teach these same codes of behavior to their kids.

 

Notwithstanding certain limitations, I believe most people can appreciate what is morally or ethically right or wrong.

 

Sure, there will be divergent opinions raised in some "specific circumstances." Nevertheless, within the framework of most life experiences, there is likely a general concensus on what is ethically or morally correct to do or say. Nonetheless, sometimes the "inner voice" gets silenced.

 

With respect to the "parenting certificate idea", while the idea has some merit for its intended purpose, I think it would so inflict on personal rights and freedoms so as to probably be deemed unconstitutional in most countries.

 

I will reference a statement made by one of our Prime Ministers here in Canada: He said that the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation. I believe it is not a good idea to extend such a power as "right to procreate" to these same flawed people. Parenting class or no, humans will mess up.

 

Parenting is a responsibility of great moral and ethical import in an ever-changing society such as ours.

 

Curt

[moimeme]

With respect to the "parenting certificate idea", while the idea has some merit for its intended purpose, I think it would so inflict on personal rights and freedoms so as to probably be deemed unconstitutional in most countries.

 

Yeah, I know. It's a completely unworkable idea. Heck, you can't even force people to go to courses for driving so nobody would go for mandatory parenting classes. Too bad.

 

I think I have to disagree about the nature of people. I think an awful lot of people are messed up. I think the ones that are able to teach ethics, etc. are doing so, leaving those who can't or won't who don't.

 

So you're a Canuck, too, eh? East, West, or in between (figures - Cohen reference and all).

[Curt]

Farthest East Possible

[moimeme]

I'm not far from Mile 0 (is that Mile 0:30 in Newfoundland?)

[clia]

Nevertheless, within the framework of most life experiences, there is likely a general concensus on what is ethically or morally correct to do or say. Nonetheless, sometimes the "inner voice" gets silenced.

 

I think I have to disagree about the nature of people. I think an awful lot of people are messed up.

 

I tend to agree that there is a general consensus on what is morally or ethically correct. I don't necessarily think morals and ethics necessarily need to be taught. I feel to a certain extent it is innate. Even children know when they are doing something wrong. (But they may do it anyway!) In my legal ethics class, we talk about the "uh oh" feeling. You know in your gut whether something is right, regardless of whether or not you have specifically been taught that it isn't right.

 

Or, is it all circular? Are we ethically and morally correct simply because of laws? There's been a great deal of legal debate on whether laws are necessarily based on morality. If there were no laws, would our "inner voice" be different?

 

I wonder if people are "messed up" not because they don't know what is morally or ethically correct, but because they simply do not care. There's a difference between knowing something is wrong and doing it anyway versus not knowing it's wrong and doing it. I think it's more of the former. And that in itself is a whole different can of worms. Why would people who know something is wrong do it anyway?

[Tony T]

I think a major part of the degeneration of ethics and morals has been the degeneration of conscience. I agree with clia that many people act depite the fact they know something is wrong. They do so because they suffer no consequences and they get the immediate gratification they seek, whereas formerly the conscience would have played a key role in discouraging the behavior.

 

However, I do not think we should ever discount the role of parents in moral education. Sadly, so many parents lack morals themselves or leave it up to teachers in public schools to perform that duty. Ethics and moral values must be taught to children from an early age. And they must also be taught that while they may act in good faith, many others may not.

 

It's a complicated world but never underestimate the significance of parenting in forming what a person will be his or her entire life. Rarely are ethics and morals attained midstream...not even after a lengthy prison sentence (especially not after that).

[midori]

Originally posted by Tony

However, I do not think we should ever discount the role of parents in moral education. Sadly, so many parents lack morals themselves or leave it up to teachers in public schools to perform that duty. Ethics and moral values must be taught to children from an early age. And they must also be taught that while they may act in good faith, many others may not.

 

For me this rings especially true. I have a lot of teachers in my family (my mom, my sister, aunts) and it's amazing how some parents seem to think that the school/teachers owe their kids all manner of special considerations and treatment. If kids misbehave, fail to study or do their homework, the teachers are responsible. Hello? The teachers only have the little darlings for six or seven hours a day, five days a week. Who's guiding them the rest of the time?

 

When it comes to humans in general I'm an optimist: I believe all people are capable of good and evil, and it's their circumstances that lead them to make the choices they do. But Curt is right: some people are really messed up. And it kind of doesn't matter why they're messed up -- brain chemistry, upbringing, traumatic experience. I would prefer that they not have responsibility for, and power over, children when they're not capable of being stable and nurturing.

 

I also agree with Curt that to control who has the right to reproduce by setting a benchmark that people must pass would violate far too many personal rights. And doing so would probably have unforeseen bad consequences.

 

In some ways the US government has tried to discourage "unfit" parents from reproducing -- at least those who are unfit in the economic sense. In the past decade some states initiated a family cap, which limited the size of welfare payment a family was eligible for. If you had two kids when you went on welfare, and subsequently had a third, your allotment would remain at the amount calculated for a two-child household. The idea being that people on welfare can't afford to care for the kids they already have, so they shouldn't have more. The time limits on welfare that have been instituted across the country in the last few years make the family cap somewhat moot -- if you can only receive payments for a maximum of three years (or whatever it is), increasing your expenses and home obligations will be a bad idea.

 

There are lots of problems with this: by denying them resources it punishes children whose parents violated welfare policy by reproducing (not the kids' fault); poor parents aren't necessarily bad parents; parents who have to work 16 hours a day at three different minimum wage jobs do not have the time or energy to be there for their kids. Etc. But it does seem to indicate that our society recognizes on some level that parents need to be responsible for their children. Or maybe that only applies to poor parents, and taxpayers' money.

[moimeme]

Clia -

 

I wonder if people are "messed up" not because they don't know what is morally or ethically correct, but because they simply do not care.

 

I didn't mean that they are messed up because they don't know, but rather they aren't able, or good at, conveying those values (assuming they developed them in early life) because they are messed up.

 

I don't say that parents ought not do this teaching; what I am saying is that this message cannot and will not necessarily ever get through to some parents. It's not unlike sending bad managers to courses to learn to be good managers; the truly bad ones never 'get' the message. So what then? If a kid has parents who aren't equipped to do his training, do we just abdicate all responsibility for that child?

 

Everybody goes all gushy about 'it takes a village to raise a child' and then turns around and gets snotty when it's suggested that perhaps parents need not be the only people to train children. Suddenly, it isn't the village, it's 'the responsibility of the parents'. 'Splain me that, please?

 

BTW the question of whether morality is innate or derives from external experience is one of the oldest questions of philosophy. Nobody has yet managed a definitive answer

[Curt]

I agree...as I said previously, sometimes the inner voice we all have gets silenced. This can happen purposely, or otherwise.

 

Everyone Reading This Thread PLEASE note:

 

I should back up to a previous post I made on this thread though, where I said the following;

I believe it is not a good idea to extend such a power as "right to procreate" to these same flawed people.

 

This was an error in typing on my part. That sentence was supposed to convey the following idea,

 

"I believe it is not a good idea to extend power to determine who has "right to procreate" to these same flawed people that make laws."

 

I am all for a couple's desire to create new life from the love they have for one another. I hope to share that same joy of bringing new life into the world with a loving wife at some point in the future. I don't think that I, nor most other people in the world, should require classes in order to know what to teach their kiddies is right and wrong.

 

The only proviso that I would include to the "It Takes a Village" idea though, is that the village be a secondary source of guidance for the kids.

 

It should not be the only one, and definitely not the primary one, which still, IMHO, is the parents' domains.

 

From what I have seen in the classroom, by the time they reach school, a lot (not all, but a fair deal) of moral and ethical coding is already set down in a child's psychological makeup.

 

Curt

[moimeme]

I don't think that I, nor most other people in the world, should require classes in order to know what to teach their kiddies is right and wrong

.

 

There are still parents who beat their children. There are still parents who verbally abuse their children. There are still parents who know little about prenatal nutrition and proper nutrition for themselves, let alone their children. Now that the full responsibility for children rests on their parents instead of the extended family, there are fewer mitigating forces to ameliorate the situations these kids find themselves in. Life skills are still not really taught in schools so the cycle of pain spirals downward and outward when it occurs. One must not only teach right and wrong, one must do right.

 

And it is NOT limited to the lower-income or blue-collar portion of society. Doctors, psychologists, and ministers have been wife and child abusers, frauds, etc.

 

Nobody knows everything instinctually. Some people think that one never needs learn anything about sexual technique because it should all come by 'instinct'. Others think that somehow 'instinct' can guide parenting. If this were true, every man and woman would be masters of sexual practice and no child would live a miserable family life. It is obviously untrue, yet generation after generation persists in believing that they can be great spouses and wonderful parents and nobody need show them how.

 

What would it hurt to have mandatory parenting courses - other than people's egos? When does it ever hurt to learn from people with more knowledge and experience? Who is such a perfect parent/partner/anything that he or she could not learn to be better?

 

Producing an offspring no more turns a person into a good parent than walking down an aisle produces a good spouse. If it did, there would not be the problems we see in every newspaper and all around us. And just telling a person to assume responsibility doesn't explain for what or how.

[HokeyReligions]

All the talk about morals and ethics and who is responsible, and how it should be controlled --

 

Many years ago medical studies were done that set the path for much of the genetic research we have going on today. These studies showed that genetics plays a large role in the moral and ethical core we are born with, but environment, parents/role models/ and society contribute to the behaviors and attitudes that are within the genetic code.

 

Part of these studies also involved genetically and socially controlling the population growth. Those subjects whose intelligence were determined to be "sub-standard" to the intelligence of the class or race that were conducting the studies, were eliminated or altered so they could not reproduce. (survival of the mentally fitest). The flaw is that the tests designed to identify those subjects of less intelligence were subjective.

 

The basics of all the testing was to weed out the "inferior" subjects and keep only the strongest, most intelligent subjects, reproducing. Those who would go on to teach and train the youth in "appropriate" ethics, morals, beliefs, attitude, and actions. In a few generations all of the evils of the world would be eliminated because the population would be made up of smart, ethical, blah blah blah, people with the skills to keep the population moving forward.

 

it looked good on paper - it would eliminate abuse, hunger, violence, and increase productivity, innovation, and intelligence.

 

As it is, much of the medical/genetic strides we have made in the last 60 years are a direct result of the research and tests done back then. We would not be as far along as we are now without those early studies.

 

but thankfully, those studies were ended and the people responsible killed or caught. I'm talking about Nazi Germany and Hitler.

[moimeme]

Hokey

 

genetically and socially controlling the population growth

 

NOBODY suggested anything of the sort.

There is a huge difference between a parenting course and genetic manipulation and you know it. It is not at all fair to twist a debate that way. This is hyperbole at its worst. I generally enjoy your posts and I don't think this extreme reaction is warranted.

 

Frankly, it frightens me when merely suggesting that people don't know everything and could maybe improve their knowledge and skills by learning generates this sort of overreaction. You may recall that Nazis also burned books to prevent people from acquiring new information.

 

I fear anybody who thinks they have nothing new to learn about parenting or anything else. That is a dangerous belief.

At its worst, that is the basis of authoritanarianism.

[moimeme]

Now let's recap. I did NOT suggest capturing all potential parents, leg-chaining them together, forcing them into camps to be brainwashed, and killing any who didn't pass the course.

 

I simply suggested a course.

[HokeyReligions]

genetically and socially controlling the population growth

put this back in the context in which it was written.

 

NOBODY suggested anything of the sort.

 

I said it in my post and I was clearly talking about prior studies.

 

There is a huge difference between a parenting course and genetic manipulation and you know it. It is not at all fair to twist a debate that way. This is hyperbole at its worst. I generally enjoy your posts and I don't think this extreme reaction is warranted.

 

Well, DUH! Ya' Think? Actually, they are both control issues. Have you studied history? A lot of GOOD things that have actually benefitted humans came out of the atrocities of WWI and WWII, but those aren't in all the history books. How seriously were you taking my post anyway!

 

As for a parenting course - on whose ethics and morals should the course be based? On which laws? A single person or government perhaps? Look at the debate about taking "God" out of the pledge of allegience - can you imagine what would happen if a government body created a parenting course!

 

These types of socialist control issues were tried - in Germany in the 1930's & 1940's.

 

Frankly, it frightens me when merely suggesting that people don't know everything and could maybe improve their knowledge and skills by learning generates this sort of overreaction. You may recall that Nazis also burned books to prevent people from acquiring new information.

 

I'm not overracting - I'm throwing some other information into the mix. Maybe I should not have if it frightens you.

 

Actually, I think you are overreacting. Do you think someone is going to read my post and, and, what exactly? Go march on Washington?

 

I see some correlations in the desire to better ourselves as a human race, but certainly not in the approach.

 

I fear anybody who thinks they have nothing new to learn about parenting or anything else. That is a dangerous belief.

At its worst, that is the basis of authoritanarianism.

 

Educating someone and pointing out their choices is a lot different from leading them. Most people are easily led which is why people like Hitler, Jim Jones, etc. have been able to do what they did.

 

The resources are out there for anyone to learn about parenting, or anything else. If they choose to.

[my_mother's_daughter]

Most people are easily led which is why people like Hitler, Jim Jones, etc. have been able to do what they did.

 

Woah!! Where is this going Hokey???

[Tony T]

Most people liked Jim Jones? I'll drink to that!!!

[moimeme]

As for a parenting course - on whose ethics and morals should the course be based? On which laws? A single person or government perhaps? Look at the debate about taking "God" out of the pledge of allegience - can you imagine what would happen if a government body created a parenting course!

 

I agree completely. They who seek to control all humans would doubtless craft a course rife with subliminal suggestion which would surely create a generation of mind-robots conditioned only to obey the dictates of Big Bad Government. [insert simily indicating sarcasm here]

 

Heavens to betsy, girl!!!! There are thousands and thousands of courses - including marriage preparation and parenting courses, which have already been designed and are being taught and we are not marching in lock-step yet. Take a breath!

[moimeme]

bah, humbug. That should have been 'smiley', not 'simily'

[Tony T]

YOU WRITE: "bah, humbug. That should have been 'smiley', not 'simily'"

 

Are you always like this?

[moimeme]

Always like what? Mad at my typos? Yep.