I Give You My Permission

In I Give You My Permission, Orson Scott Card gives parents permission to be strict. I enjoyed his intro:

So much of parenting is about guilt.

We of my generation were raised by anxious, guilt-ridden parents. They grew up in the Depression and lived through World War II. They knew what it was to be poor, to be broke, to be hungry; they knew better than to ask their parents for a thing, because there was no money.

Their idea of a date was to take the streetcar to get an ice cream. Their idea of a party was to stand around a piano and sing the latest hit songs together. Their idea of a great Christmas present was a jacket that hadn't been worn by an older sibling.

And they were grimly determined that their children would lack for nothing.

So we — their spoiled baby-boom children — grew up with a weird combination of being spoiled rotten while being made to feel guilty about it.

"Eat this huge plate of food. Children are starving in China."

"What do you mean you don't like hot cereal? When I was a kid I went without breakfast and hot cereal was a luxury."

"You better enjoy this vacation in Disneyland. Your father had to work two weeks to pay for it."

"You're whining because you have the best health care money can buy? When I was a kid with a toothache, my dad just pulled it out because we couldn't afford a dentist."

"Look at our big new color television! When we were kids, we had to sit and look at the walls and hum, because we couldn't even afford a radio."

So when we of the Baby Boom generation got married, we were determined (a) to make sure our kids had every single thing their hearts could conceive of desiring (because we felt so guilty) and to make sure they never felt bad about having it (because we hated feeling so guilty).

Weren't we the love generation? Our children would know nothing but peace and love. We would take their side in every dispute at school. We would never make them follow silly rules. We would never say, "Because I said so!"

They would be free spirits!

OK, well, now they are. And it's terrifying, isn't it?

He notes, "Repression is looking better."