Excerpt: Parents, your kids aren't that special - CNN.com

Excerpt: Parents, your kids aren't that special - CNN.com

Normally I don't always agree with conservatives - but then why label people anymore - it's not helpful and I think we are 'fed up' on both sides of the political fence.

This particular article struck a chord and a nerve with me. Mainly because I do get sick and tired of parents expecting the entire world to adore 'their little angels' when in fact the kids are devils incarnate. All kids get into mischief, all kids test the boundaries, it is up to parent to teach them manners and how to ultimately become adults. That is not to say that I want a bunch of 'Stepford Kids' running around - but there is something to be said about cultured, refined individuals and if children are not learning that from their parents, where are they expected to learn it from. I don't pretend my own kids are perfect either - my son's table manners are atrocious. So I am not by any means saying I did everything right - but I know my kids knew what would happen to them if they behaved in a truly repugnant manner in polite company.

A couple of quotes from Mr. Cafferty's article that really hit home:

"I don't know the status of parenting in America. But I know a little about the status of education in America. Parents' growing inability to impose manners and limits on their kids when the kids are in school is reflected in record dropout rates, as well as teen drug and alcohol abuse, teen sex, and unwed pregnancies. Maybe it's parenting that's on the decline, more than the schools."

And:

"Exhibit A: My wife and I have just been seated for dinner when the maitre d' walks over and seats a young family at the table next to us and the kids start carrying on like orangutans on a leash.

The parents are going, "Timmy, that's not nice, don't throw your food, stop stuffing your mashed potatoes up your nose." Are mom and dad having fun yet, picking food up off the floor, apologizing to people like us, and wiping food flung across the table off their faces?

Some parents still have this attitude that their kids are too special to be burdened by discipline. And the rest of us are supposed to put up with their little mutants. That attitude really pisses me off.

I hate to break it to them, but the kids aren't special, and I don't have to put up with their behavior. If you can't control your obnoxious little brats, leave them home.

They don't belong out in public annoying other people, period. I don't remember a generation of kids ever so indulged and enabled to behave so badly. What's going on?

I remember as a kid I was expected to behave myself out in public or suffer the wrath of one very angry father. And of all the things that used to piss him off, those expectations didn't seem unreasonable. Something's gone terribly wrong here. My guess is it has to do with the breakdown of authority, the collapse of strong family structure, and the abdication of parental responsibility, dictated in part by the necessity that both parents work."

So you parents out there (and you know who you are - you are the ones who get 'those' looks from us total strangers) - do the rest of us a favor - if you can not or will not make your children act as they are suppose to in polite society - keep them at home - and also refer to my last rant about school and the way your children behave their as well - in other words: Get a fucking clue.