Disobedient Parents

[Bubba_Switzler]

Has anyone else noticed the phenomenon of children disciplining their disobedient parents?

I’ve caught my own children trying to do this. At first I just found it amusing. But the more I look around the more I realize that there is something more to this.

My wife, being more motherly and feminine, is inclined to avoid conflict and, thus, seems more inclined to go along or at least to avoid direct conflict. I often get the impression that I am supposed to respond this way as well.

I can only imagine that young people are being encouraged and instructed to challenge their parents on moral issues by various progressive advocates.

In a sense this is at least as old as the 60s but there is an element to this that is quite new as well. The 60s generation despised their parents and went their own way hoping, eventually, to transform society but kids today seem quite brazenly confident that they know something that their parents don’t and that their parents need to be properly disciplined for their conservative views.

 

[jmjZelie]

I have not seen this. Can you give an example?

 

[Anglewannabe]

Has anyone else noticed the phenomenon of children disciplining their disobedient parents?

Are you saying your kids order you to the time out chair and you do as they say

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Are you saying your kids order you to the time out chair and you do as they say

I think they wish they could. No, I’m talking about something much more subtle: attempted shaming.

The most subtle form of this is a roll of the eyes as, for example, when I defend traditional marriage. Or telling me I need to read this or that about marriage equality or other modern ideas of gender.

But it can esclate from there when real choices arise.

 

[LethalMouse]

In some cases notably the divorce culture… for examole my son sees his life constantly altered by the government. His living, time with parents etc… we live in court me and his mother. So he has little regard for family in a sense of parents first. To him external authority reigns supreme and if he thinks something is against a rule he will not trust without much ado that it is okay.

We are talking freaking out stopping in a driveway to look at a wonderful christmas light display because the driveway was private property and we would be arrested…

I think that since the majority of children today are in broken homes the culture is more like that. And the children of good homes are surrounded by the ones without, ever influenced… I could almost buy into the conspiracy theories about destroying families, bc at the current rate in another generation people will turn their families in for jay walking

And on social issues that logic follows, as they teach this stuff in schools, the gov is right and their parents are wrong.

 

[Anglewannabe]

I think they wish they could. No, I’m talking about something much more subtle: attempted shaming

The most subtle form of this is a roll of the eyes as,

I wouldn’t call that disciplining I would call that disrespecting

for example, when I defend traditional marriage. Or telling me I need to read this or that about marriage equality or other modern ideas of gender.

Well that is only because those things are so prevalent in the media today. When I was a kid only rebels wore jean jackets. Can’t say I have even seen one in a while

But it can esclate from there when real choices arise.

Yup, sin has always been around

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

In some cases notably the divorce culture… …

And on social issues that logic follows, as they teach this stuff in schools, the gov is right and their parents are wrong.

My children don’t have the excuse of coming from a broken home but I am pretty sure they’re getting a load of BS from school.

I’m trying to be gentle and charitable in my response but it’s not easy.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

I wouldn’t call that disciplining I would call that disrespecting

That’s the interesting thing. I don’t think it’s merely disrespect. There is an element of moral superiority involved that I have never seen before. Well, except for what I read about on college campi.

 

[LethalMouse]

My children don’t have the excuse of coming from a broken home but I am pretty sure they’re getting a load of BS from school.

I’m trying to be gentle and charitable in my response but it’s not easy.

I at first didn’t quite realize I think yours are all basically social issues? They are just standard worldly rebellion… the world tells them these things, and now seemingky the majority says this. Kids tend to latch to socail issues like this for the reasons I already stated and because it is the easiest way to be “better than”. They can see you as not grasping modern life and “true human rights” etc…

They clearly are not fully grasping or embracing Catholiscm if they are pushing these views.

 

[pensmama87]

There’s a fascinating book I read a few years ago called Hold Onto Your Kids. It discusses the phenomenon now that so many young people are more attached to their peers than their parents, and some of the reasons this can happen and how to make an effort to switch it.

Rebellion has always been a bit of a thing, but I do think it is over more now than it used to be because children and teens have so much more access to other influences, and other influences have so much more access to them. There’s a proper place for some of those things, but in some cases they can take over.

 

[RPRPsych]

My son does it all the time and he’s only 10 months.

Me: “Okay, sit here and play quietly. Dad has to [del]play Chrono Cross[del] do some work.”

RPR junior: “WAAAAAAH!”

Me: “I guess not…”

RPR junior: :hug3:

 

[lax16]

That’s the interesting thing. I don’t think it’s merely disrespect. There is an element of moral superiority involved that I have never seen before. Well, except for what I read about on college campi.

Yes I hear and see it a lot. Recently a mom told me that whatever she tries to discuss with her 18 and 22 year old sons they completely disregard her opinion. They say for every argument she has against gay marriage, smoking vape cigarettes etc they say they have information to shut her down.

Really? Now tobacco and nicotine are healthy?

 

[EasterJoy]

This is as old as the hills.

You know, when I was 18, I thought my father was pretty dumb. After a while, when I got to be 21, I was amazed to find out how much he’d learned in three years.* (Fr. O’Malley, Going My Way, 1944)

Popular culture often depicts parents as laughably arrogant figures, while their children are the perceptive family members who aren’t too proud to see real wisdom. School teachers sometimes sell their views as the result of “research” and “rational analysis,” whereas traditional views are based on superstition, a system set up so that the few can oppress the many, and fear-based religion that forbids pleasure.

Oh, yeah, it all goes back to the same tempting lines of thought Eve got from the serpent, the same temptations as in the Tower of Babel story. Old as the hills.

*(a similar quote sometimes attributed to Mark Twain is not from his known body of work and could not have been uttered by him about his own personal life, since his father died when he was not yet 12 years old.)

 

[Arizona_Fat_Gir]

I was surprised at how much cigarettes cost these days since I never smoked, except for that time behind the garage when I was 7 years old.

If you think kids are disciplining parents now, while they are in their teens and early adulthood years, it gets worse when “kids” are in the forties and their parents are much older. It is as if they think suddenly that their parents have lost all their marbles and don’t know the time of day.

They sometimes think their parents are doddering old fools who don’t have any common sense. Then there’s that “We will have to take the car keys away pretty soon” comment that they squeeze in from time to time.

I will have to admit older people are sometimes easier to scam. I’m thinking of the different scams that seem to be directed at elderly people, like the one where the grandson calls and tells his grandmother he is in trouble and to wire him a thousand dollars, etc. Only he is not the grandson.

 

[LeahTherese]

Speaking AS a teenaged girl who, to my genuine shame, does catch herself doing this kind of thing not infrequently (not maybe about same sex marriage etc but plenty of other stuff…either consequential things, or not) - I think it probably is just disrespect to parents.

I don’t think I (and I’m sure other children of whatever age) don’t MEAN to be disrespectful…maybe it’s a sort of boundary-pushing thing, trying to set up one’s own identity separate from one’s parents?

Plus to be honest especially among teens and those in early 20s it’s probably just hormones and part of ‘growing up’. I don’t think THAT’s anything new!

It doesn’t make it ok or anything and I’m ashamed to say that I do this as much as anyone else. As others have said maybe it’s partly a result of wider society that might present parents’ views as being something one is MEANT to react against, and about which one is meant to ‘educate’ them - but I think it’s also just the age-old thing of children trying to annoy their parents, often for the sheer amusement of it. I’m sorry to say that, on reflection, I sometimes do that too.

God bless,

L

 

[pianistclare]

There’s a fascinating book I read a few years ago called Hold Onto Your Kids. It discusses the phenomenon now that so many young people are more attached to their peers than their parents, and some of the reasons this can happen and how to make an effort to switch it.

Rebellion has always been a bit of a thing, but I do think it is over more now than it used to be because children and teens have so much more access to other influences, and other influences have so much more access to them. There’s a proper place for some of those things, but in some cases they can take over.

Yes.
I know what the OP means.
I remember a relative in her 20’s telling me that her parents knew nothing abut politics.
They read the NY Times as a newspaper! Horrors! They were “completely ignorant” about life in general. I laughed to myself.
Everybody’s an expert now that they have access to too much information (some of it NOT helpful) online. My own daughters watch things on YouTube and believe they are real and think I’m silly for not acknowledging this or that conspiracy. A young Catholic friend of mine just sent me a video of a national catastrophe that the government is planning for this summer. Yup, you read that right, PLANNING.
I’ve seen many 30 somethings very disrespectful and dismissive of their parents.
They expect that THEY should be deciding things for their folks. What to wear, what to believe, what to eat, etc. When the parents say “no thanks, I can make my own decisions” the CHILDREN decide that mom and dad are “disobedient” because they believe they know better.
This didn’t happen as much years ago. I might have thought I knew better, but I would have never scolded my parents. No way. :dts:

 

[LethalMouse]

Yes.
I know what the OP means.
I remember a relative in her 20’s telling me that her parents knew nothing abut politics.
They read the NY Times as a newspaper! Horrors! They were “completely ignorant” about life in general. I laughed to myself.
Everybody’s an expert now that they have access to too much information (some of it NOT helpful) online. My own daughters watch things on YouTube and believe they are real and think I’m silly for not acknowledging this or that conspiracy. A young Catholic friend of mine just sent me a video of a national catastrophe that the government is planning for this summer. Yup, you read that right, PLANNING.
I’ve seen many 30 somethings very disrespectful and dismissive of their parents.
They expect that THEY should be deciding things for their folks. What to wear, what to believe, what to eat, etc. When the parents say “no thanks, I can make my own decisions” the CHILDREN decide that mom and dad are “disobedient” because they believe they know better.
This didn’t happen as much years ago. I might have thought I knew better, but I would have never scolded my parents. No way. :dts:

At some rare points this can be interesting though… I wouldn’t go on about scolding persay but we can have an issue with our parents failing from esteem in some ways.

For example (I am 30) my dad who is a check the box catholic, type amen on fb posts is about the main extent of his religion… when I began going back to church he was like “whoa don’t get weird” etc. Same guy who SENT me to CCD and believes himself catholic thinks my going to church is weird.

He is also nit a huge reader or book type guy, so he has never read the bible. His typical theology is “I haven’t read the bible and barely remember my CCD but here is the how it works…” it is as an adult a bit easy to roll my eyes

Also, he tyoically askes me things because he is poor at memory of things… and if I tell him something he has forgotten when he isn’t in the mood to admit his usual claims to poor memory then all of a sudden “don’t tell me I’d remember” I am like an hour ago you said “oh I forgot you know I don’t remember anything”…

Eh, I reel in the annoyances out of respect and with human factor naturally every now and then he might end up right that I didn’t tell him something etc. So I measure not being overly condescending out of respect etc… but it can be hard.

Here I might suggest that when we cross into a level of adulthood and experience that it is a bit different than being 12 and telling a parent you know better because a 12 yr old said so… my son will on the other hand argue that a 7 yr old told him something and therefore that is more true than what his parents etc say… that is imo on a different level than 30+ year olds with decades of experience, education, reading, and reasearch who might occasionally roll their eyes…

Even moreso when age catches up on mental faculties of some.

Now while not my parent an Uncle who was once a figure of respected family elder to me is a general life screw up. Alcoholic, gamblaholic etc… it is hard to resoect someone like this who lives as a leech from their younger family memeber. When we experience this it becomes harder to view age synonymous with wisdom.

 

[pianistclare]

I hear you,
But the OP is about parents "disobeying " their children.
I never expected my folks to obey me.
That’s all.

 

[LethalMouse]

I hear you,
But the OP is about parents "disobeying " their children.
I never expected my folks to obey me.
That’s all.

Fair, I guess I was commenting more on the subtle types of disaproval.

And you are correct, I have no expectations of being “obeyed” by my parent, perhaps other than as it may pertain to my own child’s care or such thing.

 

[pianistclare]

Fair, I guess I was commenting more on the subtle types of disaproval.

And you are correct, I have no expectations of being “obeyed” by my parent, perhaps other than as it may pertain to my own child’s care or such thing.

That’s a good point.