on John Rosemond
I’m sorry, but I just have to say a few words about this advice-for-parents columnist. While there are occasionally times I agree with him, mostly I think he’s a blowhard who has about as much business writing a parenting column as, well, as any other parent. Aside from his serious fixation about early potty training, his advice usually seems designed to escalate any parent-child conflict into a power struggle that, in order to prove their superiority, the parents must win at all costs, one that drags the whole family into a petty legislative mess of counting out behavior tickets or hours of confinement. Perhaps these techniques do enforce obedience and good behavior, but enforcing behavior is not the be-all and end-all of being a parent. That’s what the assistant principal is for. Your job is supposed to involve a little more.
While Rosemond’s pontificating usually strikes me as silly, there are occasionally times when I feel his advice is almost dangerous. There was the time he told the parents to take away all their son’s “privileges,” including various electronic toys he had bought himself with his own money; I wondered if that little scenario would end in one of these tragic domestic bloodbaths we read about. Then there’s his latest fad of “the final conversation.” I’m sure there are times, especially with little kids who just won’t let something drop, when it’s a good idea to say “we’re just not going to talk about this anymore.” But I think it’s a serious mistake to tell a troubled pre-teen that you’re just not interested in hearing about her troubles any more. Here’s a column that upset me a while back, in which a girl is having trouble with some “friends” at school. Yesterday’s column was about a girl who’s having troubles with her absent dad. In both cases, Mr. Rosemond instructs the moms to basically cut the girls off. “...we’ve had that conversation before, and I have nothing new to say. And you’re going to have to deal with it.”
I cannot imagine behaving this way with somebody I love. (Well actually I can, but only in a moment when I’d been pushed past the point of endurance. I would apologize profusely afterwards.) Here are girls who are coming to their mothers with their problems, hoping for advice and sympathy—yes, they keep coming with the same problem, because that’s the problem they have. Does John think these girls, so treated, will still be coming to Mother a few years down the road, when a teacher treats them unfairly? When they are choosing a dress for prom? When they’re being pressured to give the boyfriend a BJ or smoke some weed after school? Is this how parents are supposed to “keep the lines of communication open”?
He’s big on Christianity, is John Rosemond. Is this how he imagines the Heavenly Parent hears our prayers? John Rosemond comes to the garden alone, and the voice he hears falling on his ear says, “John, I’m sorry, but we’ve talked about [insert serious problem here] many times before, and this is our final conversation. I have decided that we aren’t ever going to talk about it again. When you have something new to pray about, let Me know.”
August 18th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Thunderous applause. That is all.
August 18th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
My response to the parent that says that to their child about their ex or other parent they are no longer with would be–Thanks mom/dad–great choice you stuck me with there–sorry you don’t want to talk about it, but I didn’t get a choice when you chose that person as my other parent.”
Honest–I’ve said this before to my parents!
What crap–this is”Traditional Parenting”? Ha!
August 18th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
My, my — I believe Mr. Rosemond has run out of new ideas and is simply cutting and pasting his responses. Too bad they aren’t good responses.
August 18th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Thank God the Birmingham News stopped printing his column years ago. Of course, they replaced it with James Dobson, but that didn’t last long! I went to hear JR speak once at a church right down the street. I had very young children. I was very scared. Decided I would just do the best I could.
August 18th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Why, thank you, Bill.
Yes, Kiki, “traditional” meaning the magical way they did it during the brief period when Rosemond himself was a boy. You know, that golden age the bards sing of, back when life was perfect.
Kathy, I’d forgotten about it, but he’s gotten in trouble once already for re-running columns. Maybe you’re right, and now he’s just re-running his ideas.
James Dobson! Ugh. My mother bought me one of his books once; bless her heart, she thought it was a nice inoffensive book about “raising sons” that as the only daughter of an only daughter, I would find useful. I explained that Dr. Dobson thought I would turn her grandson into a nancy if I spent too much time with him (at least I think that’s what it said). She was appalled. (Come to think of it, he’s a little arty-farty and has gay friends, which from Dobson’s POV is probably just as bad - so looks like his admonition was correct!)
From what I’ve heard of the B’ham News, though, I’m surprised they stopped carrying his weekly pearls of wisdom.
August 19th, 2008 at 7:50 am
No, Del, it’s actually DH’s fault, not yours. Dobson advocates fathers showering with sons to show them who is, um, dominant. I bet that didn’t happen at your house.
The Birmingham News does occasionally display a modicum of good sense. Case in point: dropping both columns.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:01 am
Oh, ewww. You would be right, Kathy.