There are no "really good" parents

[megi]

I do stand by my statement that there are no “really good” parents — I think that until a rational proof of objective ethics is more widely disseminated, parents have little choice but to substitute will and punishment for genuine and reasonable moral authority.

Ahhhh! You either have purely rational proof of objective ethics, or you have to force your will on your child via punishment. Makes sense!!

Basically, if you have morals like don't kill, don't hit, don't steal, don't rape, and don't have some deeply rational ways of proving those, like raping can't be moral, because men in comas can't do it to each other in the same hospital room at the same time, thus it has to be evil, you just have to rely on imposing your will and punishment.

Now in the common case when your child doesn't comprehend your rational proof of objective ethics, nor care about your genuine moral authority, you'll just make him act that way (will and punishment?), because you can assume that when you explain it to him when he'll become adult, he'll understand it, and accept it.

And when other people raise children with morals like don't kill, don't hit, don't steal, don't rape, just because they think it's a sensible thing, and hoping their children will not mind and understand that later on. They're still not really good. They don't get UPB.

Meanwhile, it's just a false dichotomy. You can have no justification for your morals, and not be imposing your will on your child. And conversely you can have all moral justifications, and still be imposing your will on your child, all the more because you feel justified. Or you may be a moral nihilist, and not have to deal with morals at all. You may think in altogether different categories, like personal boundaries, and their protection.


In the end it's not about ethics anyway, it's probably about Stef's dislike of directly imposing will and punishment on children. Imposition has to be done very indirectly, through manipulation of child's environment. If you manage to manipulate child's environment in such a way that it will not do things you'd not want him to do, you're a good parent. It's your failure if you had to directly impose your will on a child.

[Anarchist]

How to prove ethics to your children is what all the best childcare courses focus most on. Surely they spend 36 times the effort and time on that before getting to the victim's characteristics!

[megi]

How to prove ethics to your children is what all the best childcare courses focus most on. Surely they spend 36 times the effort and time on that before getting to the victim's characteristics!

My sarcasm detector had a false negative hit at first...

[Anarchist]

I do stand by my statement that there are no “really good” parents — I think that until a rational proof of objective ethics is more widely disseminated, parents have little choice but to substitute will and punishment for genuine and reasonable moral authority.

Speaking of that, since most of the obedience he'll require from his child will be amoral things (since he thinks few things are immoral), this is the guy who's repeated that when you floss, your gums bleed but that's counterintuitively good.

I know from personal experience that, while it takes a while longer, you can gently work the floss in each time and not harm your gums.

Yet if anyone had a child without doing 'basic research' or whatever he says such that it led to pain like that repeatedly for years (years!!!), that would have been something he'd have hooked on his fishing line.

How many times has he been corrected because he uses common stories as analogies and it turns out the common story is an urban myth or something? His analogies run like lemmings over a cliff.

[Anarchist]

My sarcasm detector had a false negative hit at first...

Success!

[megi]

Yet if anyone had a child without doing 'basic research' or whatever he says such that it led to pain like that repeatedly for years (years!!!), that would have been something he'd have hooked on his fishing line.

Wow, yeah. That's definitely defoo stuff right there! I mean, if one parent would teach child to hurt himself so bad, so that it bled on and on and on from his mouth, for years at a time...oh... that's some devious stuff. I mean, how much blood does a human body have? Like 6 liters? Every time the child bleeds from his gums, that's one drop of blood it'll never get back! I mean does anyone see any other options? No. Right? Right?! And the other parent? I just don't think keeping relationship with someone who steps over bloody corpses like this monster, would be healthy. She had to see the blood, didn't she? The child had to speak to her, opening it's mouth, so she had to see the BLOOD, and ignore it for years! Or if she didn't speak to it, that's neglect too, right? Ohh... oh! And those twisted bastards have said to the child that it's for his own good! They're using power of good to cause grave evil!

It would be really hard to overstate that this house is almost burned to ashes. (I definitely tried though) The child jsut have tio ruuun! There is no time to even check spelling mistakes!

We could go on and on... but I think you had enough to think about...

[Florian]

Some time ago a fdr guy asked me "Do you still see you abusive parents?", before I even told him something about my childhood. I thought it was a joke. Oh how I was wrong.

[Prodigal son]

Then there is the astonishing claim that your parents unconsciously want to kill you in order to silence or appease their own inner child. I think that's a core belief among the inner circle. It's surprising that the human race has managed to survive so well given this trait.

Stefan studiously fails to identify the violence he is inflicting on his child. He refused to even countenance arguments that there are negative aspects to vaccination and even if it is accepted to be a desirable act (as many people believe), there are documented reasons for delaying it for as long as possible to allow the child's immune system to develop. The natural "true self" reaction of a child subjected to this traumatising experience seems to suddenly be inconsequential.
Moreover, he doesn't understand that although daycare centres can be poorly run and utilised as mere parking slots by busy parents, there is a whole other side to the story wherein children need to socialise with their peers, often impossible in increasingly isolated nuclear family stettings, and daycare centres can be run very well indeed, so many parents opt for that solution to help their kids establish independence and develop socialisation and learning skills that are unavaible in the home, reluctantly relinquishing a small amount of greatly valued time with their child. Instead, he condemns his daughter to crawling around on the carpet with a grown man in the attempt to earn candies given as rewards for UPB compliant behaviors. Not that there's anything wrong with fathers nurturing and playing with their kids, it's a matter of balance. He also used sleep training, which is condemned by many of his favorite theorists, and advocates timeouts and the withholding of affection (which he reframes as "treats"), a practice that I would argue is in many ways more abusive than a raised voice or a light slap on the backside, which is short, unequivocal, ideally painless, and allows the love and sense of security to continue to flow more or less uninterrupted.
Perhaps, by his own metric, he actually revels in humiliating his daughter by forcing her to make her gums bleed, refusing to allow her to watch TV or sending her early to bed with no story and refusing to allow her to eat her favourite foods. After all, he was by his own reporting subjected to a brutal childhood so he is just as much as likely to want to seek redress by abusing his own children as any other parent ("his" theories, not mine). His only assurance that he is not doing this comes from his self-identified true self. So that's alright then.

[Prodigal son]

...just to be clear, I am not claiming to have any answers here. My wife and I allowed our kids free access to TV and any foods they developed a preference for, and we allowed them to go to bed when they pleased. We also sent them to daycare for the reasons I have cited above and likewise delayed their vaccinations. All in all my wife and I adopted a hands-off style of parenting. Was all that good? I dunno, but I'm not the one claiming to have been one of the world's best parents. I would change many things if I had the opportunity to do it all again, although our kids seem to have grown into happy and well-balanced young adults in spite of our errors.

[megi]

Some time ago a fdr guy asked me "Do you still see you abusive parents?", before I even told him something about my childhood. I thought it was a joke. Oh how I was wrong.

Yeah, I had this mindset for a few years. I didn't use such a obviously loaded questions. But I assumed that parents were the first culprit to look at for emotional problems that people told me about.

Even if the person figured out for example that his issue might be related to some significant experience in school, like bullying, I would still assume that there must be some reason he got picked up by bullies.

You just go backwards until you get to parents at some point. Heh.

[Hajnal]

Then there is the astonishing claim that your parents unconsciously want to kill you in order to silence or appease their own...

inner parent, typically the mother.

I think it was that, not the inner child.

Instead, he condemns his daughter to crawling around on the carpet with a grown man in the attempt to earn candies given as rewards for UPB compliant behaviors.

This is a caricature of what I think (based on what I remember) actually occurs. First, Isabella is a little girl now, no more crawling. And, I recall that she had playmates. (I very much enjoyed listening to Stef talk about his daughter.)

But anyway, it feels a bit slimy to me to talk about Stefan's home life this way when we've never even personally met him (I met him, briefly, but only in the company of other FDR people) and his family.

Now, if you took the time to quote him and cite it and directly address his words, that would be optimal, but we all know (I know!) what a drag it would be, because we have, you know, lives. xD

it feels a bit slimy to me to talk about Stefan's home life this way when we've never even personally met him (I met him, briefly, but only in the company of other FDR people) and his family.

Zomg. It just hit me, though, the irony of this statement, because that is exactly what he has done in the past with families he's never met...

[Prodigal son]

Oh dear, "slimy" seems rather a harsh characterisation - possibly harsher than "silly goof" - but have it as you will. Sticks and stones etc.
I listened to an enormous number of podcasts and Sunday shows and I recall Stefan talking about his interactions in the terms I have paraphrased, but I don't care to even attempt to find the relevant bits, even assuming they have not been purged. It would be a gargantuan task and I cannot bear to listen for more than two minutes these days, even assuming I had the time.

Yes, he does talk about families he has never met like this, but he doesn't have the benefit of having listened to the parents describe their home life in such intimate detail. I would never presume to discuss people I haven't met in similar circumstances, but I think the fact that these matters have been aired publicly and used to promote certain behaviors and condemn others somehow frees me from the normal constraints. Perhaps not though.

[Hajnal]

Sorry. Perhaps would be better to say that I feel really...weird around it.

Yes. I sympathize with you: it would be a huge task not worth the effort, even if we had the time.

And indeed, we've heard more about him than he's heard about us.

Unfortunately, objectivity is compromised somewhat, perhaps even leading us to unrealistic conclusions, because we're not taking the time to quote him. Not that we should even try. Even if we did, what's the point, really?

[Argent]

In terms of moral culpability, Stefan makes the distinction between people who should know better, and people who are clueless. He would definitely have to put himself in the former camp, given all the preaching he did about childrearing, even before deciding to have a child. And he's still preaching, and affecting how his listeners raise their children. I think his parenting strategy is fair game for discussion.

It does feel weird to do so, since a young person is involved who cannot excuse herself from being Stefan's poster child for Better Parenting even if she wanted to. But the weirdness started with Stefan making her the poster child. It's not like we had to go to any effort to find out the information we have about her. He throws it out there. The fact that he used to plaster the chatroom window with photos of her during Sunday shows realllly creeped me out.

[Hajnal]

Good point Argent.

The fact that he used to plaster the chatroom window with photos of her during Sunday shows realllly creeped me out.

Yes, it creeped me out too...