In Response to Austin Bodzioch (3/27/2010)

Q:” If all parents disciplined and didn't spoil their children then do you think that the world would have better appreciated people rather than alot of spoiled, snotty and uncaring people?”

I believe that the answer to this question actually exposes a problem with your blog post; there are many other factors that cause children's behavior other than parenting. Children do not spend all their time with their parents, and parents are not the only way that children are influenced. I agree that parents are a major influence on their children, if not the greatest influence, but children do not develop into a certain type of adult just because of how their parents treated them.I feel that you draw too much significance to the effect that parenting styles have on children.

You say you “have heard of many instances where children are completely spoiled”, and that they act this way later in life, but I feel that this cannot be proven in any way. For as many instances as there are were spoiled children become spoiled adults, I feel there are also many situations were spoiled children mature into caring adults. I feel that it is just people’s assumption that all spoiled children become spoiled adults; people who make this assumption tend to forget the many factors that affect the way human’s act over their lifetime. Furthermore, I think the people who make these assumptions are at their own major fault because it seems that they are quick to make assumptions about people who they do not know.

Even though I do not agree with your blog post, I completely understand where you are coming from because parenting does have a major affect on society in general. For this reason, I find your question very interesting, but I feel my previous rant answers the question itself. Since there are many things that can affect a person over their lifetime, I do no think parenting by itself will make much of a difference in the people that make up our world. Things like schooling, reading, and the general media will have a huge affect on children as they become adults. However, I do feel that just like are schools, parenting in our society could be much improved. With that said, I feel we have more important issues than worrying about what type of people we have in our society, and I completely disagree that the world is made up of “a lot of spoiled, snotty and uncaring people.”

It is good to focus on the overall significance of parenting in our society, but I feel it is a major mistake to assume that adults develop into uncaring individuals just because of the way they were brought up. If parenting were to generally improve, I do think there would be more caring people in the world, but I feel that you are making this issue to simple; it is hard to define exactly what good parenting is, and parenting is definitely not the only factor that affect children’s development into adulthood.

Would parenting be improved within a Socialist Society? Why or Why not?