Reestablishing parental control

“Your parents don’t need to know everything,” said the flashy
Internet banner advertisement for the American Express Credit Card for
Students.

“Do your thing; click here to apply,” the ad said, complete
with a graphic of a tongue with an earring stud.

Message? “To hell with your parents; get in debt if you
want to, even if you can’t make the payments and regardless if your
parents are helping you pay for your college education. And we’ll help
you do that.”

Unbelievable.

I have one daughter (so far) in college; it’s her first year. She
wants to be a doctor; my wife and I are encouraging her, naturally, and
we have even paid her tuition (so far), and have continued to allow her
to live at home because it’s cheaper, and we want to see her incur as
little debt as possible. After all, as a med student, she’ll incur
plenty of debt in her own time.

She also has a couple of credit cards, but you can bet your assets
she cleared it with mom and dad before she was allowed to get them.
Having been through the credit card thing, my wife and I explained our
daughter’s responsibilities involving those cards; i.e., the payments,
the exorbitant amount of interest she would pay if she chose to run huge
balances on them, and the budgeting process she must adopt to make sure
her employment provides adequate compensation for her to meet her bills.

It’s a parent’s job to teach their kids such financial lessons. But
American Express obviously doesn’t think so; they prefer to let these
kids get crotch-deep in debt to them in the pursuit of the
almighty dollar.

That is worse than irresponsible; to encourage such non-parental
involvement makes the executives at American Express — many of whom are
probably parents themselves — some of the lowest forms of life on
earth.

But this example is just one of the many that make it extremely
difficult for parents to raise responsible kids these days.

On the one hand, we have federal, state and local officials demanding
that parents take more responsibility for kids who skip school, kids who
are bullies, kids who bring a gun into our streets, kids who have sex
and kids who beat animals.

But on the other, we allow companies to launch marketing campaigns
aimed at kids that specifically discourage parental involvement.
Also, we’ll allow kids the “right” to make important decisions about
abortion and birth control all by themselves, then criticize parents for
not doing enough to prevent little Suzie from becoming pregnant in the
first place.

In short, parents are expected to assert control, but not expected to
demand it. However, one cannot be accomplished without the other.

It used to be — in the “old days” — that parents, until children
were either 18 or out of high school, were not only in complete control
over their kids’ lives, but were expected to be in complete control.

In those days, you didn’t see 5-year-olds swatting their mothers in
stores; you didn’t see most kids dressed like street thugs with
piercings, tattoos and attitudes. The incidence of teen pregnancy was
much lower, as was the incidence of sexually-transmitted disease and
juvenile delinquency.

If you doubt these problems exist, you either need to get out more or
ask your kids’ teachers about them. They’ll tell you what’s really going
on.

Since the liberal “anti-establishment” crowd has taken over our
institutions, popular culture and media, problems between parents and
kids have worsened. These people, you may recall, are the same pinheads
who spent their youth in the 60’s hooked on drugs, free love and hair
down to their bell-bottomed waists.

But parenting hasn’t changed — it’s only become more difficult. As
in past times, today parents still must accept responsibility for
their children. They are charged with raising respectful, responsible,
productive members of society.

Yet the more “liberal” our society gets — fostering teenage
“rebellion” against all forms of authority — the harder parenting gets.
And we parents don’t need these problems.

The time has come for parents to speak out against blatant attempts
to usurp their authority. They have that right; they are
providing the comforts, the caring, the guidance and the ability for our
kids to grow and flourish. By any right, that makes them the sole
arbiters of their children’s future — until such time as those kids are
fully grown and prepared to go it alone.