Hacker News Reader

Comment by seibelj | Hacker News Reader

My father was short tempered, very loud, and an unusually large man in stature and presence. Additionally he worked nights, got a couple hours of sleep, and then woke up and took care of my brother and I for breakfast / school before sleeping more. He was not someone to mess with in general, let alone at 630am on a Tuesday.

I think the threat of being screamed at and intimidated made my brother and I two of the most well behaved kids I knew. I would see my friends going bananas and think, “are you guys out of your minds?”

I’m not advocating this style of parenting, and I won’t replicate it, but I can’t deny that the old school mechanism of raising kids was basically “sit down, shut up, or else!” and it made kids much more likely to listen. And the view of children as mini adults who could be useful, if properly trained, has been the default parenting style for thousands of years.

View on HN

> And the view of children as mini adults who could be useful, if properly trained, has been the default parenting style for thousands of years.

I remember reading a theory, long ago, that the absence of this is the entire source of teenage rebellion. Like the children from Guatemala in this article, it also said that this phenomenon pretty much only exists in "westernized" countries.

Basically, the theory is that puberty is when our bodies start telling us we're adults and need to take more responsibility/control, but society doesn't let us. So to find ways to take control, teenagers start doing things they're typically not allowed to do.

I'm in your camp: I never really understood why others did what they did, but fitting the theory, my parents did steadily treat my and my brothers more like adults as we grew up, instead of like kids most of the time.

One suggestion from their parenting style, that's apparently rare based on what my friends said:

Never give your kids an allowance. Once we were old enough, they started paying us for more chores/responsibilities; I got $5 for vacuuming the house once a week, my brothers each got $5 for mowing the lawn (usually split between inside and outside the backyard). Additional $1 for loading/unloading the dishwasher. Stuff like that. It doubled as giving us an inherent understanding of money long before we needed to work, rather than just giving us more responsibilities as suggested in the article.

Well, my parents gave me lots of freedom but I acted out like an angsty fuck anyway. Seriously, I had what you guys are talking about here: from the age of 3, I had a large area to explore filled with cobras, scorpions, and animals. Play with my friends (who I had to find in the neighbourhood - hard enough since houses were half a km away from each other) was self-directed.

Then we moved to the city at 11, and I was still allowed autonomy, and most of my activities were self-directed so long as my scores were good in school.

Well, my life has given me evidence that you get no guarantees no matter how much autonomy or independence you get. Sometimes it's just sheer luck.

I hear you, but there's a distinction between open-ended autonomy and being provided with structure in which adult behaviour is incentivised. They're different things each of which are beneficial in different ways.

Old-style parenting gives the child responsibility but definitely not control.

Teenagers rebel because they are biologically motivated to experiment, and they get more conservative as they age, no parenting required.

Another anecdote people might not like: Sunday school was an amazing form of early-childhood education for me. Some of my first experiences with music, art, and reading were in Sunday school. It taught me to love drawing and singing which I still like to this day. We were taught to obey our parents or go to Hell, to pay attention or go to Hell, to share and be kind and to empathize... or go to Hell... Which everyone of course realizes the implications of, even at very young ages.

I once had a very interesting conversation with a high school teacher of mine who taught very high-level math. Speaking only of his students who were in honors courses, he said that there was a clear divide between students from religious homes and students from secular ones. The religious ones were much more diligent and willing to learn. The non-religious ones may have been smart but were sometimes unmotivated or couldn't handle the rigorous pace of work. The religion itself didn't matter - we had Hindu, Christian, and Jewish kids in the class, maybe one Muslim but I don't remember. He himself was a Christian so maybe he was biased, but I believe it.

Interesting theory, I think there's something to it.

There's probably some selection bias going on with the religious homes thing. Like the hidden variable that both religious adherence AND discipline/work ethic are caused by: a belief in a meta-order that one should conform to and operate within.

i.e. It's reasonable to assume that more traditionally religious parents are people that tend to prefer (a) explicit order and structure, and (b) conformity or deference to authority. If you value those things, you will likely place a higher degree of value on discipline and work ethic in your own life and in your children's lives.

On a more subtle level -- and this will likely be unpopular on here -- I believe that sincerely religious people are also more likely to have a certain "default stance" towards life / the universe... that their actions matter, that they want to be "morally good", that they must take into account a perspective other than their own (either God's perspective, their priest's, their parents', etc). That combined with a kind of earnestness... seems like a good plan for success in life.

Obviously not saying those are exclusively or even principally religious attributes.

Also not saying that that stance is absolutely the best one. You can likely index too far that way too.

Essentially everyone where I grew up was nominally Christian (we were highly unusual as an atheist family), and it was the churchiest pillar-of-the-community families whose kids acted out the worst.

People who take part in organized religion are probably have a more authoritarian personality.

A religion-based anecdote like this sounds very odd to my Western European/Australian ears.

I simply can't imagine anyone here in the UK or in Australia (where I went to school and university) making such statements relating students' diligence to religious background.

(For what it's worth, I went to a Church of England-run high school, where the top students were overwhelmingly non-religious.)

In so many ways, the USA is a very different country...

There's a lot of range of behavior when it comes to strict parents, but just for the sake of tossing out my own anecdote the friends I had growing up with what I thought were ultra strict parents, all ended up acting out in later years. These were smart, disciplined kids that I grew up with, but when finally out from under their parents things changed as they went through university and eventually early life away from their parents.

To me it seemed they were just kept in a bottle for years and then other development started as soon as it could away from mom and dad.

Granted, what you and I think of as strict parenting could be very different things, and a few had a sibling who actually stuck with a very straight and narrow path through life.

Yes, kids and young adults now commit less violent crime and less likely go into bloody fights. I mean, for all the "kids behaved better for thousands years", I actually went out of way to check how people in the past acted and it was not so rosy.

On average, the kids raised like this tend to do what autority tell them when autority is present. It is different when autority is not present and they are in presence of weaker kids.

"On average, the kids raised like this tend to do what autority tell them when autority is present. It is different when autority is not present and they are in presence of weaker kids."

It is still the same today, I can watch with some alpha parents who act like that. The result is bow to the top, kick below. Disgusting.

Out of curiosity, what were your feelings like towards your dad at this time? Was there a lot of fear around him? Did you "like" him?

As someone who grew up in a working class environment in which mostly everyone had "flawed"(lol) fathers, I've found that there's a big distinction in the structure of the discipline.

The parents for whom crossing a line resulted in verbal/physical abuse but were otherwise fine tend to have good relationships with their kids. While the punishment is much more severe than it would be in other families, there's a clear logical structure that a child can understand. When I was younger I would say stuff like "My dad hit us sometimes when we were being dumb, but otherwise he was great". However, I've long learned that people that grew up in the middle/upper class don't want to hear statements like that and get extremely uncomfortable, so I now leave it at "my childhood was good".

On the other hand, the people I knew growing up that had a father that was arbitrary with their anger tend to have non-existing/bad relationships with their fathers. I'd see situations where the father would tell their son to do X, son would respond that they've finished X already, father would lose their temper and scream at them to do X again, which made no sense. When you do that, you're not teaching a lesson or imposing any structure, you're just teaching your son that you're an asshole. Unsurprisingly, these children grow up with extreme resentment towards their fathers that has lasted into adulthood.

The last time I read some studies on the subject of physical discipline, the conclusion was closely aligned with what you observed. Children who were physically disciplined but understood their parents loved them and had a consistent approach to the discipline had no negative long-term effects from the discipline, whereas those who were arbitrarily "disciplined" (really, just abuse if it's arbitrary) or didn't have an understanding of their parents' love for them had significant negative effects from the abuse.

My dad hit us sometimes when we were being dumb, but otherwise he was great

People possibly react strangely to that for a few additional reasons?

- Culturally now, "hit" can refer to anything all the way up to criminal domestic violence, blunt weapons, and hospital visits.

- Kids routinely cover for their parents, even when they are the second kind- the kind that just lose their temper, beat their children unconscious, etc.

Less vague terms like "spanked", "slapped", etc might cause milder reactions...

Raising a child and being liked are two different agendas and at times are at odds.

Best advice don't be your child's friend be parent plenty of peers who can be friends but none that can be parents.

I have an 8 year old son, and I think I do a pretty good job of being stern / enforcing rules while also ensuring him that he is liked and loved.. There is definitely a balance in there, "not being his friend" I think is too far to one side... I just don't let being his friend prevent me from holding him to a certain expectation.

To me, a friend is an equal, and someone you can count on. My sons are not my equals, and I'm not their friend. This doesn't mean I don't show love or affection, just that I don't expect the same kind of support from them as I do my friends. I also don't order my friends around from time to time ;-)

However I hope in the future we be friends, when I don't need to wipe their ass or provide food and shelter.

I would agree on the wiping ass part, it's hard to be friends until then.. but I have a 40 year old brother who still barely provides his own food and shelter so good luck with that part =)

I think of "friend" as someone you enjoy spending free time with and are willing/open to confiding in

Thanks for the warning. This is why we made 2 ;-)

This is a good sentiment to have. My dad was my dad until I left home for university - he loved us and provided for us but also was the authority and disciplinarian when necessary. Now that I've got my independence and my own household, my relationship with my dad is far more like one of friendship, alongside my trust in him as a mentor or life advisor, if I feel like I need that kind of advice. I feel like it's been integral for my development as a person and value our relationship immensely.

One of the best things you can do for your children is to teach them to behave in such a way that you will like them. Because if you will like them other adults are also likely to like them. When you and other adults like your children it opens up huge opportunities for growth and positive experience both inside the family and out.

I don't know exactly how that fits within the definition of being their "friend" exactly. It sounds a little adjacent to friendship to me.

My parents divorced when I was 10, and now my dad is married to his third wife. Age has mellowed him and his third wife has whipped him into a more submissive role, which was a good change in his personality.

I don’t hate my dad, he is a flawed man but I love him. We both like NFL, boxing, and movies so we talk a lot about that.

My brother is mostly estranged from my dad and they talk rarely, but we all do get together most thanksgivings.

This reminds me a lot of my dad growing up. He was very stern, the disciplinarian, he divorced my mom when I was 11.. We have the best relationship we've ever had now, but as a child I was thankful he moved away.

So his methods worked, but it damaged his relationships with his kids. Seems too high a price to pay.

Seems too snap a judgment to make.

> the threat of being screamed at and intimidated made my brother and I two of the most well behaved kids I knew

I can't speak about your experiences, of course. In general, my understanding from experts is that being yelled at trains children to simply avoid being yelled at; they don't learn good behavior.

> And the view of children as mini adults who could be useful, if properly trained, has been the default parenting style for thousands of years.

I don't see that as a positive. The world was a horrible place for thousands of years; it was only in the last century that we started figuring things out, got children out of coal mines, learned germ theory, democracy and human rights became the norm, etc. etc. I like our modern ideas much better.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com