by Dawn R. Babcook

Created on: July 31, 2011   Last Updated: August 01, 2011

I believe that we do the best we can when raising our children.  We try to teach them right from wrong, manners, etiqutte, the difference between the truth and a lie.  We instill values upon them all throughout their childhood and hope that everything we do to try and instill these values upon them works and follows them throughout their adult years.  Unfortunately there are times in which our children do defy some or most of what we tell them and once they are in their adult years, some of our children will either forget what we have taught them or they chose not to listen or adhere to our advise and they live their lives in whatever manner they choose.  I do not believe that the parents should be held accountable for what their children do in their adult years, just as our parents were not held accountable for what we did during our adult years.

Of course, also in today's society there is a lot less discipline and structure with our children as the government tends to interject more than they should and parents are afraid to properly discipline and structure their children for fear of being retaliated against by either the children, school officials, employers or their local child protective services agency.  In my day, parents were allowed to spank their children if they did something wrong as a form of punishment, which definately gave us a better appreciation for values and standards.  Now a days there are too many people trying to tell everyone, parents included as to how they are supposed to discipline their children and their methods allow for little if any discipline which cause our children to believe that the values and standards we are trying to impose upon them are wrong or that we are giving them wrong information so it tells the children of today that no matter what they are doing that it is ok and that our parents are wrong.  Thus far allowing our children to live their younger years in charge of their own lives.  Society has really placed a lot of the blame on the parents when in fact the blame needs to be placed on those who step in and interject where they shouldn't be getting involved.

If things would go back to the way they were 20, 30 or more years ago, where the parents were the ones in charge and able to discipline their children as well as provide them with the guidance, structure and values that they believe then I truly believe that our children of today would be better off and then we wouldn't have parents being blamed for all of the wrong doings of their children and adult children.

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