Parenting 101

There has been a movement afoot for a few years to trivialize and re-order the roles of parents. Instead of providing guidance through things such as instruction and discipline there are segments of the population that would prefer the parent to be merely provider of life and let the kid figure things out on their own. It is no longer a parent-child relationship but instead they want the parent to be a friend.

Now, in the interest of fairness I should point out my Dad is indeed my friend...but only as a byproduct of his parenting. He is and always has been a father first. There are things we do not do together that people who were friends first might...not many, but a few.

Well, some people have never learned that. Some people are so intent on being friends that they forget to be parents first. Sometimes this works, other times the so-called father ends up in the hospital when, instead of helping the kid learn maturity and intelligence the Dad gets up on a balcony and decides to hold a spitting contest with the kid, loses his balance and does a nose-dive onto the pavement below.

No word yet on who spit farther but we are pretty sure who won the falling contest.