Your kids ARE the most important members of your family.

No matter what a "how to raise your kids" guru says

Every month or so, a 2017 column by John Rosemond, “Your kids should not be the most important in the family,” crops up on social media again. Rosemond, a psychologist, is a controversial figure in his field. It’d be helpful if some of the people who admire and repost this column would look up his bio before they shared the piece. If Mr. Rosemond’s needlessly contrarian tone isn’t enough of a hint by itself, a perusal of his bio adds much insight into why this particular piece might not be the seminal work on the subject.

Mr. Rosemond is a major player in the “how to raise your kids industry,” which is, if nothing else, lucrative. All in all, some of what Mr. Rosemond has to say makes sense. I agree, for instance, that many kids these days do not get enough discipline. I agree that many parents coddle kids when they should be kicking their little butts. I get where he’s coming from. I just don’t think that dealing in black and white, when the landscape is made up of grays, constitutes sage parenting advice.

Mr. Rosemond’s central and recurring idea is that children come second. Without parents, he reasons, there would be no food or shelter. He compares families to corporations, where, as he claims, the most important person is the CEO.

That ought to tell you something right there.

Rosemond’s column begins with an allegorical question:

“I recently asked a married couple who have three kids, none of whom are yet teens, ‘Who are the most important people in your family?’ Like all good moms and dads of this brave new millennium, they answered, ‘Our kids!’ ‘Why?’ I then asked. ‘What is it about your kids that gives them that status?’ And like all good moms and dads of this brave new millennium, they couldn’t answer the question other than to fumble with appeals to emotion.”

Taking him at his word that this is more than merely figurative, there’s a gaping issue here. He asked the wrong couple. If he’d have asked, for instance, my wife and I the same question, he’d have gotten his spark plugs changed.

There is an obvious reason why your children are, in fact, the most important members of your family — and deserve all of the attention that you can give them. Your children had no choice in your decision to bring them into the world. Kids don’t get to choose when, where and into what family they are born. Some kids win the lottery in this regard, but way too many others don’t.

Kids have very little control over their own lives and depend on you, their parents, to make lots of good decisions to keep them going. If you don’t, your kids are very likely to suffer consequences more than you. It’s a pretty lopsided deal, in parents’ favor. The least that you can do as a parent, in absolute control of all the resources and authority, is try to hold up your end and be reasonably good natured about it in the process.

I don’t think that’s asking too much at all.

This does not, mind you, give your kids carte blanche to do whatever the heck they want. I’m definitely not for that. Kids don’t run the show — that’s our job as parents. But like in way too many things these days, we have in Mr. Rosemond’s scold, an example of very little real estate between extremes. Somewhere short of “anything goes” but a fair piece from “welcome to hell,” there lies a sweet spot in parenting.

Yes, being a parent is tough — but so is being a kid. Every child is different and so is each new situation you confront with them as a parent. There are few perfect days. Most of the time the best that you can do is enough just because it has to be.

If Rosemond begs to differ, well, he’s welcome to walk a mile in my shoes — as long as he does so in person. I’ll bring the spark plug socket.

In my opinion, the entire “parenting” industry should be viewed with skepticism. Humans have been successfully raising children for many millennia without any help from “parenting experts” until very recently. Most of you know how to raise your kids just fine. Most of you care deeply about your children (as you should). Most of you routinely put the rest of your family before yourself. And most of you did not glean this from any parenting expert. You knew how to conduct yourself in this regard because humans are social creatures and that’s what family is all about.

The true joy of being surrounded by family is knowing that there are people around you who are more important than you. It’s knowing that what’s good for you may not be good for everyone else. That’s quintessentially what being a parent is all about. If one of my kids needs a transplant, I’m going full John Q if that’s what it takes. I am far from alone in that either.

Though I am irreligious, I happen to have a high degree of regard for the manner in which my LDS friends and in-laws treat their children. I’ve never been to a holiday celebration with any of my in-laws in which children were not served dinner first. Family activities and vacations are planned with kids in mind first and foremost. This is an aspect of the LDS experience that I think they got entirely right.

None of this means that there’s never any time for mom and dad, it means that mom and dad are aware of the fact that kids are only kids for so long, then the rest of the world has to deal with what you did right or wrong, as a parent, when they are adults. That second phase lasts a lot longer.

Since, as a parent, I am in as much of a position to offer an opinion as Rosemond on the subject of parenting, here it goes: A parent’s principal job is to prepare their children for a successful life. It’s an absurdly difficult task, and it’s a bona fide miracle that so many parents pull it off. And mostly they succeed in spite of, rather than because of, the “experts.”

Mr. Rosemond is free to look me up if he wants to confab with someone who’s less prone to answering questions about parenting while fumbling with emotion. I’m easy to find.

Associated Press and Idaho Club award-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time with family, riding mountain bikes and motorcycles and playing guitars. His writing on Substack, “Howlin' at the Moon in ii-V-I” may be found at martinhackworth.substack.com