Hi! Welcome back to Mothers For Women’s Lib! I originally wrote this as a post for my other blog but before I posted it I realised it would be much better posted here, and as I’ve been planning the return of MFWL I figured why not kick off with this?
I saw a link on Pinterest today about a game to play with your children to teach them good table manners and ensure ‘good behaviour’ when eating out. In the game, each person at the table (adults and children) gets three lolly sticks. If you (child or adult) ‘catch’ someone breaking a ‘table rule’, you get one of their lolly sticks. The person with the most lolly sticks at the end of the meal is the winner.
Now this isn’t about my discomfort at trying to push an adult model of behaviour onto children who are behaving age-appropriately when they exhibit ‘bad behaviour’. I think there’s enough room in allowing kids to act age-appropriately to also teach them the way in which they will need to behave as they grow older in order to be accepted by the rest of society. No, my issue is with the way this game was worded in the blog post in question; the writer says “My kids love this game. It is the only time they are “authorized” to correct Mom and Dad.” Later the writer adds, “Also, remind them that ordinarily they are not allowed to correct adults. They may only due so during the Manners Game.”
Now I’m not picking on this writer specifically – he or she was just the latest in a long list of writers, and people I’ve met in real life, who adhere to the belief that children should never correct adults. The idea, I think, is that children are obliged to respect adults and that they should show this respect by never correcting them, even if the adult in question is clearly doing or saying something that is wrong.
I have two problems with this. The first is that adults automatically deserve respect from their children. Wee Chum is seven now, an age where he is properly carving out his own identity in a world that expects him to behave in ways that don’t necessarily fit with his instincts. He has, I feel, a great deal of respect for me, my husband, his father and most of, if not all, the other adults (and children!) in his life. But I’ve never demanded respect from him. I remind him not to be nasty or rude, and I model respectful behaviour to him, and above all else I ensure I behave in a way that means I earn his respect.
Because really, I don’t automatically truly respect any person I meet. This is a two-part statement. Firstly, I think everyone is deserving of some level of respect (respect for their bodily autonomy, respect for their beliefs, etc), whether they are adults or children. But the sort of respect that these people are talking about – the respect an adult “should” be shown by a child – that sort of respect, I think, should be earned. I want my son to respect me because he admires me as a person, because I do and say things that he finds worthy of respect – not simply because he is forced to by expectation.
My second problem is that somehow children are less entitled to point out another’s wrongdoing than adults. As a parent, I think nothing of telling Chum that he’s doing something wrong, be that chewing with his mouth open, not letting another child have a turn on the slide, or being rude to somebody. What makes it all right for me to correct him, but not for him to correct me? He is, after all, a human being, no more or less a person than I am. I am very comfortable in the fact that Chum feels confident and comfortable enough with me to correct me if I do something wrong. The thing that comes to mind straight away is swearing. I try not to swear around him, but if I do he reminds me that swearing is not allowed in our house. And I don’t tell him off for telling me off. I apologise, because he’s right!
This can have further reaching consequences than the writer, and others who feel children should never correct adults, might have foreseen. For what if an adult was to abuse that child who’s been told to give blind respect and never question an adult’s words or actions? Knowing Chum is not afraid to speak out when an adult does something he knows is wrong, means I am a little more confident that he would be able to say “No”, that he would be able to tell that adult that his or her behaviour was wrong, and that he would be able to come to me or another trusted adult and tell us what has happened.
So there’s my tuppence-worth on the idea that children should never correct adults. I think that to raise honest human beings who aren’t afraid to speak out when they see bad things happening, we need to start by telling children they have the right to speak out, and that even adults get things wrong sometimes. What do you think?
Edit: I had an email today from the writer of the blog post I referenced, and she has also replied to my comment on her post: “I meant that normally we don’t let them correct adults at the table. It is a little embarrasing when we are at someone’s house and they point at the host and say, “You are chewing with your mouth open!” Lol. Of course they are aloud to tell us if someone is doing something seriously wrong. We just want to show them that there is a time when we don’t tell other adults they are having bad manners.” She makes a good point here and I am grateful to her for the clarification!
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Thank you for this. I battle with this everyday. I’ll post more later (running out of the house now) but I have to say seeing another feminist mama who sees this issue similarly to me is reassuring when the rest of the world doesn’t agree.
I see your point *and* I will probably be the sort of mother you are.
BUT.
I am a teacher now and I can absolutely see which children are parented this way and which children are parented in the “ordinarily, they are not allowed to correct adults” way. What happens if you parent your children as equals, and respect their personhood and say “you have a point there” and all that good stuff, is that they will (as teens), question every damn thing you do. And not only the things you *are* doing wrong or the serious stuff but everything.
Yes, it’s desirable to reduce your levels of being a hypocrite. This is the ideal, in fact. But to have *every* decision/rule/situation second guessed and discussed by one teen is a nightmare, by a dozen teens in one class and you have yourself a situation!
There is something to be said for “I can do it because I’m a grown up” or “This isn’t open to discussion why you think I did the wrong thing here”. Though I am willing to discuss my decisions when it doesn’t interfere with the lesson because teens LOVE to play this card to get out of doing any work. So, I say something like “If you feel really strongly about this, come back at 3pm, I’ll be here.” (They rarely come. If they do, I take them very seriously.)
And, as teachers are very fond of pointing out, life *isn’t* fair and some people are allowed to do things that others are not allowed to do and some people get away with doing the wrong thing.
Giving young people an ideal situation where the rules apply equally to everyone and everyone does the right thing… you’re just delaying the inevitable and not giving them the coping skills to deal with the disappointment. Better to have the realisation when you are three and get all the grief for a perfect world out of the way!
Also, when your children are adults…. Is it appropriate to say “It is rude to speak with your mouth full”, “it is rude to spoon soup towards yourself”, “it is rude to put your elbows on the table” to OTHER adults? Not really. In our culture, adults can do what they want but children are allowed to be taught “the rules” by adults.
Hmm I’m not entirely sure the problem is Anji’s type (or similar) of parenting. Trying to teach your child that people are accountable to each other and not putting adults on a pedestal is not the same as allowing kids and teens to think they can question anyone and anything whenever they feel like it to derail a discussion or task.
I like the tactic of asking them to come back later if they want to discuss things further though, allowing for serious concerns to be heard at an appropriate time.
I wish teens would get that distinction! I love it when kids are able to call adults out, I love it! (But I wish they would only use those powers for good.)
Children being told they must not correct adults is part of how serial child abusers get away with it. Telling children that there’s one set of rules for them and another set for adults teaches them that they can’t question *anything* an adult says or does.
In a less-frightening area, it also gets us bullies on playgrounds, because kids quickly sort out that “adult” doesn’t mean “person over 18″ but “the person in charge.” When the teacher assigns one child to manage the class for a few minutes, that child is “the adult”–and kids who’ve learned not to correct “the adult” learn not to correct or challenge any kid who acts like an adult.
Yes, in fact, there *are* different rules for kids and adults. And when they have the maturity to cope with the complexity of those rules, they’ll understand the nuances of those differences. When they’re still learning how rules work, those rules need to be as consistent and equitable as possible, so that they believe the purpose of rules is “everyone gets along” rather than “the strong people get to do what they like to the weak people.”
Children who are taught that adults can correct them, but it doesn’t go both ways, learn that the purpose of social rules isn’t “polite behavior” (otherwise, wouldn’t the adults want to know when they’re failing?), but “control the kids.” And of course, by the time they’re teenagers, and not-quite-kids anymore, they don’t believe they’re subject to that set of rules.
Great to see this post, Anji. And a great post. I think it may be a matter of teaching context as well as content, so that they know when it’s appropriate to correct others, including each other.
I’ve found that it has been worth the effort to teach them some social rules, and to explain that it’s just a matter of politeness. My kids are quite happy with things like calling older people, especially elderly people, by a title (eg. Mrs Barrett), until they are invited to use a first name, even though they hear us using given names. But we’ve also tried to teach them to judge when some adult is being rude or obnoxious, and to sympathise with them, saying that yes, that behaviour was rude, and what they (the children) were doing was just fine. I guess that what I’m trying to fumble towards is that we’ve tried to teach them social and ethical judgement.
I would say teach equality and respect, but also make children understand that sometimes people in a position of responsibility have to do things that would be against the rules for those under them to do.
I do believe in treating children as full people because the old way of doing things where children had to always be respectful and obedient left them open to a myriad of heinous abuses. “Be quiet and respectful, Johnny” can easily lead to, “Pull down your underwear, Johnny” and we do not need more of that in our society.
My only caviat on this is that children also need to understand that sometimes people in a position of responsibility have to do things that those they are responsible for aren’t allowed to do because that’s part of their job.