All the time? Never break any of those rules? That would be abnormal. Not bizarre, but abnormal.
But that might apply to any and every thing. A child may, one time, steal; having done that once they may then make a habit of it; so will you treat your child like a potential thief, keeping valuables locked out of reach? Or will you never give your child privacy, because they may misuse that privacy to do drugs? Or will you never let them spend money unmonitored, because who knows what kind of narcotic they may buy with it? Or never let them browse online unmonitored, because who knows what religion or ideology they might then get radicalized by?
Oh ....but I mean....if you had a really good Talk, then no. That works.
You mock the Talk, but you want to guide your kids, surely, not police them? What other non-invasive way is there to do that, than a series of Talks? As I see it -- now I think about this -- effective Talking, friendly yet firm, helpful yet non-invasive, guiding yet not helicoptering, is probably a large part of what successfully bringing up a child is about, or should be. As well as nurturing an environment and a relationship where such is feasible, and where the idea of such isn't the kind of joke you appear to think it is.
(Again, thus spake the guy who's not yet had kids, who's not even married yet. That's how I feel -- feel strongly I guess, now I've thought about this -- but I don't know, reality may yet bring me around to your more cynical way of thinking, We'll see.)
So anyway, do you have this kind of don't-let-the-kids-out-of-your-sight-FSM-knows-what-damage-they'll-do-to-themselves-and-others attitude for everything, like drugs, like 'bad company', like filching things, like violence towards other kids, whatever? Or is it just the boy-girl sex thing, just that? I'm trying to understand your POV. That does make some kind of sense, the just-pregnancy thing, because pregnancy is something big, sure -- but hey, so's doing drugs, so's ganging up and beating up other kids, so's a lot of things. I mean, surely what we're looking for, as norm, is kids we can, that word again, trust?
The scary thing is that I've met parents who actually think like that.
Heh, touche again.
But know what, I could say the same about your approach, that it scares me, right?
Okay, jokes and hyperbole apart, I do find your approach, not scary, no, but disagreeable certainly. Here's why:
That you're unable to trust your kids when it comes to responsible sexual behavior means one of three things:
(1) Either your own kids (kids you draw experience from to believe what you do, not necessarily your offspring) are actually not trustworthy. That makes your reaction rational, as far as "your" kids specifically. But what isn't rational is your extrapolating from that to imagine all/most kids are likewise untrustworthy. And that's disagreeable in so far as you might influence policy for other kids on that basis.
Or, (2) You're simply being unreasonably cynical and suspicious. That's disagreeable and not quite healthy for all kids your attitude might influence, yours as well as others'.
Or, (3) Your suspicions are well founded, and most kids are indeed not really trustworthy. They'll probably get knocked up, or get other kids pregnant, or do drugs, or steal, or beat up on others, not always but once in a while, if left unmonitored.
That is, as far as this third possibility, my own ideas, basis the kind of kid I'd been myself and the kinds of kids I've known, is atypical, is not the norm. Sure, that's entirely possible, I see that. But that also is disagreeable to me, since in that case, if constant policing seems the only safe way to bring up kids, then -- as I see it now, although it could be I might change my mind going forward -- I don't ever want the bother and the hassle and the grim un-fun prospect of being blighted with Big Brother parenthood at all!
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And of course, what is disagreeable to me, or suspicious to you, is no basis to rationally decide on the truth value of a proposition. Can kids, generally speaking, be trusted? Is the norm kids that don't get pregnant, don't do hard drugs, don't get radicalized, kids that are, you know, responsible and trustworthy, given the right upbringing? Valid question in its own right, that, and I guess subject for another, separate full-blown discussion thread, should people want to go down that path.
