Democratic Dictatorship!

My goal is to promote a healthy and positive environment with guidelines and structure in the spirit of "Not because you have to but because you want to.".


Dr. Spock, I presume.

I remember as if were yesterday. My Mom would ask where did we want to go to dinner and we always took the bait. We were young and naive and back then and we thought that we actually had a say or an opinion in family matters. It all started with simple questions. Dinner? Movie? Vacation? The questions were always simple, however the outcome was always the same. I soon realized that my parents had a particular sense of discipline. Everyone in their state had a voice but it was only white noise. They were the imperial rulers. It was as if they had a plan. The plan was set in motion the day we were born. They had 4 kids so that they could have a control and variables with their experiment in child rearing. We were living petri dishes. Scratched, swabbed and incubated. The question was when was there going to be an outbreak. My parents knew that they could only keep us contained for 18 years or so. History also taught them that they could not be too strict and they could not be too permissive. They had to cultivate a spirit of free will and choices without spoiling our innate fear of making mistakes. We had to know right from wrong! We had to understand that sometimes the popular choice was not always the right choice. We were not to be lemmings, cattle or sheep! We were to be independent creatures with compassion and empathy.

Good cop - Bad cop

I am sure that my parents discussed who's role it was at any given time to be the the naysayer. Each parent derived pleasure from watching our little faces contort when we got the big NO! They also understood that any one of us kids would go the other parent and plead out our case. If it worked in our parents best interest, then we would get the answer we expected. It was the epitome of the art of negotiating. If it was important to us, we soon learned to make our point worthwhile. They were willing to sacrifice something in return for greater gains. My parents were master chess players. They knew our moves before we did. HOW?! They were kids sooo long ago. It was all so different back then. We would say that they didn't understand our situation and their decision wasn't fair. We also knew that one of our parents would have some story that we would relate to our particular circumstances. We even heard these stories when we did not want to hear them. Perhaps this is why the Grimm Brothers' and all of the other childhood authors knew that their legacy would perpetuate many a lecture from the prophesying and pontificating parent. Oh well.. All we could do was sit back and buckle up because whatever the decision was it would make our eyes roll back into our brains. Hence the birth of that little parental euphemism: "Don't you roll your eyes at me!" or "Just you wait until your FATHER gets home!". I had always wondered what the parent in a single parent household would say in that situation. Perhaps there was a parent fairy that would come in the middle of the night and lay down the law. Is this the message that Walt Disney was propagating? Hmmmm.

Whatever the case, page 18 of the Parent handbook states: "When given an inch, every child will take a mile. Pick your battles carefully. History does repeat itself. That is why when your kids are being angels they are from your side of the family genes and when they are little banshies, they are from the other side of the family genes." We don't want to have the stereotypical preachers kid. The one kid that has so many rules that he/she becomes overly rebellious. And we don't want to be Mommy Dearest. The one parent that is off the charts when it comes to parenting skills. And we don't want to be the apathetic parent. The one stereotypical parent who always says, "I was the same way when I was a kid and I turned out all right." or "Boys will be Boys."

My parents defined a dictatorship through democracy. Talk to your kids. The pen is always mightier than the sword. Even if it is not your pen.