by Laura Gater

Created on: September 20, 2007   Last Updated: September 21, 2007

We all know them. Parents who don't or won't refrain their kids from jumping on your furniture and just smile while their darlings smash food into your carpet or smear it on your living room walls. These parents usually don't mind if you discipline their children ("They listen to you so well"), but they won't take a firm hand to them or say a firm word to them.

Wimpy parents drive me nuts. Just as their out-of-control kids keep me on my toes, whether at their house or mine or, even worse, in a public store or restaurant. It's hard to keep my kids in line when their friends are running around wildly, doing as they please. Then my kids wonder why they don't get the same freedom.

Wimpy parents make the rest of us seem like ogres for disciplining our kids and laying down rules. But our children will have a much easier time getting along in school and in the workplace someday if they are brought up to respect rules as a way of life.

Wimpy parents are not preparing their kids for real life. If a child is not brought up to respect household rules as simple as "no jumping on the furniture," or putting trash where it belongs instead of throwing it on the carpeting, he will not respect the rules in school or church.

And for everyone's sake, please don't let your child treat you as his or her personal slave. These parents are afraid that their child will make their day miserable if he doesn't get what he wants. Wimpy parents are slaves to their children. They jump when their child demands another drink or wants his shoes put on now! so he can go outside (never mind that he's five years old and quite capable of putting on his own shoes and fastening the Velcro straps). They may think they're doing their kids a favor, but they're just setting their kids up for a hard fall when they reach the real world.

Wimpy parents also beget wild teenagers. We're already seeing an alarming increase in juvenile crime rates. Teenagers without discipline who also have control over their parents (and thus over their teachers and other adults they come in contact with) are not good news.

I am not saying that my kids are perfect, or that I'm a perfect parent. Far from it. I just realize that wimpy parents are not doing their children a favor by letting them do as they please; eat when, what and where they want, and go to sleep whenever they want. A young child is not capable of making these decisions for himself. He needs an adult who will guide him by providing him with healthy meals, an adult

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