Never Fight In Front of Your Kids: Bad Parenting 101.

i think the perspectives
of children themselves on bad parenting have been strangely absent from a consideration of what it means to be a good parent and i think that youtube and social media are really changing this i just heard a 13 year old girl talking about her bad experiences primarily with her father here on youtube and she was as eloquent and well spoken as you can expect a 13 year old to be and you know one of the things it made me reflect on was that there's this whole industry of therapists and school counselors and academic articles that are written about this stuff but nothing else is going to be the voice of that 13 year old himself or herself speaking about what this is what it means in their own lives i've got to say i have i have no sympathy for parents whatsoever who choose to ignore the impact on the child of the parents fighting with one another you know of the father yelling at the mother the mother young at the father and so on and so forth now you know it seems like it took 2020 years for us to progress to the point of recognizing that the violence of parents against their own children is a big deal it's something we should try to minimize eliminate that we should really take seriously the violence of parents against children being as close to zero as possibly attainable right i mean i remember i'm just old enough to remember the view of this in the 1980s is incredibly different from where we're at now i'm not going to recapitulate that history in this video it is really interesting to reflect on including the violence of teachers against children parents we used to have debates about this where members of conservative religions would stand up and defend using the whip and using the lash and using a stick like that there was a there were used to be two sides to that debate and now there's only one that debate is over in 2020 but i feel like the debate has not even really begun yet about how the parents treat each other okay i've got to tell you for me growing up if you guys really watch my channel you already know this i i endured both okay i was beaten and mistreated by my parents directly and i witnessed my parents mistreating each other for the most part screaming at each other arguing with each other with each other for hours and hours and hours on end now i'm gonna put in a caveat here i know this may be true for a lot of you guys watching i mean what percentage of people have this in common with me i don't know it's a lot more than 10 right a lot of people's parents argue in front of them partly just because they don't know any better or they don't think about it they don't care they don't think about the impact on the child but sure you know another aspect is just poverty just not having a place where the parents can go to have an argument that's not in front of their children right my parents worked in the same office like at least nine a.m to six pm every day right it makes it even more unforgivable from my perspective that they would come home and scream at each other and fight for hours and a lot of time that was all i saw them for that day or for several days in a row given that these were not people who had separate jobs and hadn't seen each other all week like i understand some other parents or in some other situations it's not the case that we were some poverty-stricken family in a small apartment where there was no other way to go another way to talk was just sheer selfishness childishness and of course malice on their part you know malice towards one another that after having all day talk about their issues or their problems i mean so i was familiar they had a series of offices and if some of you at home are imagining my parents own some enormous company with thousands of employees no i mean i can remember what each of the offices they had looked like they started their business at a small wooden desk that was in the living room of the childhood home i was in during kindergarten you know so that was one desk in one room and i remember a couple years later in toronto where it was uh kind of two rooms plus a bathroom was their office upstairs from a coffee shop there's a second floor you walked upstairs there's no elevator small building you walk upstairs they rented a couple rooms as an office so in case you're imagining this is some huge corporation no they were very much sitting in the same room at different desks they had all day to talk to each other and they just had no concept that it was their responsibility to be civil or decent in front of me in front of their own children and i mean look they didn't get tired of screaming at each other like i could come home from school and well okay i'm saying this is if they're at home when i get home from school that would be that would be grossly inaccurate when they came home from work and i was home from school they could be fighting with each other from the minute they got in the door they wouldn't talk to me they'd barely make it into me they would cook the meal they'd cook and prepare dinner and serve dinner continuously fighting with each other and they would still be fighting with each other again this is verbal but still really shouting and really nasty and sometimes you know slamming doors slamming objects this kind of thing you know that could keep going until hours after i was in bed trying to go to sleep okay and yes i've got to say i i still had nightmares until my last year of university that derived from the fact that when my mother was fighting with my father she would sometimes storm into my bedroom it was just to get things out of the closet she whatever i was a child i didn't really need a closet so she used the closet in her own bedroom she came in she'd get these and she would be continuously screaming at my father and maybe stomping her feet and something like she would be carrying on she wasn't she wasn't screaming at me but i was lying there in bed trying to to get to sleep and this was a sudden terrifying thing in the darkness the door opens and there's this screaming and threat about you're afraid and like i was a small child right now again and in my last year of university i can remember talking to my girlfriend at the time and saying you know i have these nightmares and have only now really figured out what they are like i can remember the nightmares really clearly it's like right that's that that was during my childhood when i had that closet my mom would storm in and do this it was terrifying terrifying in a purely animal sense now i was lucky because i never normalized this i never took my parents as a standard of what was normal and decent and good and most people do most people like the the greatest harm this can do to you isn't that terror isn't you know isn't being traumatized the greatest harm this can do to you is that you think this is the way to treat the people you love like you think this is the way to treat your boyfriend your girlfriend your husband your wife or your own children that you just take this as a model i say i was i was blessed with some kind of shrewd analytical detachment about who my parents were i can remember that already before kindergarten and i can i have members from before converting during kinder that where i'm looking at my parents i think are you crazy like what's wrong with you you know i had some clear notion of what normal was and that my parents weren't it and i really challenged them i mean my ability to speak was very limited to that agent i couldn't give a lecture like this or something but you know there was something obstinate in me that would not accept this as as normal or good or even okay all right now look listening to that 13 year old on youtube today you know it made me reflect on the fact that i never really talked about this explicitly with my ex-wife i never really talked about this explicitly with melissa but i had it i had a deep commitment that i would never fight in front of my daughter all right and like obviously by fight here i don't mean like if someone tries to rob me in the streets and you defend yourself i mean whatever the argument is whatever the conflict is there are things in life you've got a voice you you've got to be animated and you've got to shout you've got to let your feelings out you got to weep fun sure it happens all right but if you're going to be a parent you've got to have the self-discipline and attachment to go out to starbucks if you've got a backyard go in the backyard that somehow you got to separate from your kids where you're not doing this in front of your children you know now i'll just say too i mean i guess this side of it i probably have talked about more with my my ex-wife there are all kinds of things i would never do in front of my children i so i don't drink alcohol at all period i have absolutely no alcohol and no drugs in my life i can't imagine drinking alcohol in front of my children most people do you know i can't i can't imagine watching sports on tv in front of my children the level of self-discipline i have if i'm doing anything in front of my daughter is very different from other people i take that incredibly seriously right um you know like even if you just read a book in front of your kids you're showing them what reading a book is like you're showing them what being an adult is like like if you're getting work done after you may have to do you know you may have to sit down and do your taxes you're not just doing your taxes you're doing your taxes in front of your daughter it becomes a demonstration it becomes a performance it has another significance right and if you drink alcohol in front of your children or if you do drugs in front of your children this has another significance you are a performer on stage for an audience of one that's going to shape how they see you it's going to shape how they think about their own future it's going to shape their behaviors it shapes their view of what it is to be an adult it shapes their view of what is normal if not what is good all right and don't don't be surprised when you as a parent then have to deal with the consequences of your own of your own actions right you know anyway i really think that coming out of that background with my own parents and this this you know tremendous sense of resentment i have just about how childish my parents were that they were people who never thought about what it meant to be an adult or what it felt meant to be a parent what it meant to be responsible and much less did they take this sense of responsibility and then hold themselves to it as a matter of self-discipline moment by moment an hour by hour and i know there are a lot of hours in the day and there are times when you're going to be exhausted and there are times when you can't be the best person in front of your kid but if so go to another room you know if you've got to take a nap go take a nap don't be a jerk in front of your kid so whatever your situation is you really have to think about two different sides of your life what you're doing in front of your kid what you're doing again as simple as going to starbucks simple going going to the backyard you know um and i've got to say you know when i started this relationship with melissa there was this enormous challenge for her almost from day one like from very very early in the relationship that all of a sudden she was going to be going with me on vacation because of these short periods of time the court gave me time with my daughter to take care of my daughter to enjoy family time with me and my daughter and you know it is just totally totally unacceptable to me and deeply hurtful to me for melissa to say anything insulting to me in front of my daughter to start a fight with me to have a dispute of any kind and look i mean the reality is melissa is a normal person i mean melissa grew up in her own normal family i wouldn't say her family is abnormal at all frankly melissa and i grew up you know very much in the same culture we both watched sesame street on tv growing up as kids we have in many ways a lot of the same cultural forces shaped us growing up and i've met her parents i've got the network family you know um i'm not i'm not saying this to vilified melissa which comes from at all i'm actually saying this to make it clear my own standards in this respect are a kind of abnormal reaction to things that might be normal in my own family but things that i really reject and you know there was an incident so we only summoned out of four times there were four trips but there were a huge amount of money and a huge amount of effort we flew from china to france to spend this time with my daughter when the court had appointed us time and you know there was this incident where like in a sense nothing happened like objectively it was the smallest thing where melissa just got angry at me over a falafel sandwich all right like i can sit here and say to you like like for real for real like if melissa did anything wrong she did something trivial wrong or she got into a snit over wanting me to go and get her a falafel sandwich and i was busy thinking of my daughter it's a time management issue all right i can say that all right i was so devastated i was so hurt that melissa would start fighting with me that melissa would start insulting me like you know i was you know in front of my daughter and i mean i didn't even really articulate at the time but like to me it was just totally totally unacceptable totally unthinkable to to do anything like this in front of my daughter i mean there's also a level in which it's like i'm thinking you know if you're going to treat me this way over a falafel sandwich like you know i'm the love of your life you're the love of my life we're so in love we're on vacation in the south of france you know there are some things in life where maybe you're gonna mistreat me or start insulting me or start you know just start berating me you know you understand there could be some situation where there's something really traumatic and unexpected happens in your life but there's some minor frustration over falafel sandwich and this is how you're gonna treat me in front of my daughter i mean guys look i was gonna say you you haven't seen me crying there were a few there are a few youtube videos where you guys have seen me break down but i mean uh we were in a situation where you know my daughter was kind of happily playing to one side so she didn't see it but i was just so broken down and so emotionally exhausted um by you know what was really objectively of a very very minor you know you know incident that way with with melissa now i think i think we did talk about adwords i think melissa really made the commitment she understood like you know if you're upset about a falafel sandwich you're upset about anything else there's a way to handle that as a mature adult where you're not doing it in front of the kid or you know whatever i mean obviously ideally you should not lose your temper with someone over a falafel sandwich under any circumstances but if you want to lose if you want to lose your temper over a lava sandwich i can take it but you can't you can't do that in front of my daughter you can't you can't set this kind of example you can't put on this kind of performance in front of my daughter now i've got to say i think i think in the whole relationship there were only two incidents like that ever where melissa lost her temper with me and started you know berating me or insulting me in front of my daughter and you know in both cases this had a huge impact on me like this impacted me disproportionately way out of proportion to the significance of what you know melissa said or did and in both cases you know i mean my daughter was completely you know in good spirits and didn't mind even laughed about it my daughter's reaction is quite it's quite interesting but you know for me in terms of the principle of the thing you know there's no excuse you can drink alcohol in front of your kids and your kids still seem happy and you tell yourself you're doing nothing wrong and the kid the kid may tell you you're doing nothing wrong with someone too you know i think that um you know we're moving into an era when the same fundamentally rational principle of allowing absolutely zero violence to your children has got to be extended to other things in life and you know what do you do when you can't use violence anymore right i mean this was part of the discourse back in the 1980s we have to reason with your children right and that's one of the reasons that's why a lot of parents didn't like this shift in our society well if you can't just beat your kids you can't just spank your kids you're doing something bad you have to actually philosophize with them and a lot of parents don't want to do that so it's not just about violence versus non-violence right it's about coercion versus reasoning really reasoning and you know parents have to reason with each other boyfriends and girlfriends husbands and wives have to reason with each other and i think there is this in my mind in my heart i think there's this tremendously important moral responsibility in setting a good example in reasoning in front of your kids this is how adults reason through their problems this is how to be reasonable even when you do have a conflict even when there is something to fight about that we're not going to squabble like children we're going to conduct ourselves like adults and i will be the first to admit you know it's tiring it's effort to to be reasonable and to reason through problems especially when you're dealing with other people who have no such inclination to be reasonable nothing is more pitiable and just nothing makes you feel less appreciated than when you put in the effort to be reasonable for someone else who's not making that effort back who's being unreasonable with you who's indulging their emotions right but when you think about it that is the single most important criterion of adulthood of all right this is about moving beyond merely a distinction between violence and non-violence it's about putting on that that burden to yourself that you know what like i'm going to be reasonable i'm going to make that effort and if i don't have the energy maybe i've got to go in the other room and close the door and have a nap you know if you can't do it 12 hours a day or 24 hours a day understand there are human limits um parenthood is an opportunity to question your own immaturity to challenge the childish habits and assumptions and excuses that you've been carrying with you still up to whatever age you are when you when you decided to have kids yourself i mean it really is an opportunity to it can it can bring out the best in people and it can lead you to assumption it can lead you to examine the assumptions about adulthood that you may have received in an unexamined way from your own parents and i've got to tell you on this issue i think in the future i think in the same way that in the 1980s there were two sides the debate about spanking and they there aren't two sides anymore i mean in the same way i think we have to progress as a society to understanding the division between the public and the private sphere understanding what you you do in front of your kids and really understanding that no it's just not the case that fighting that's screaming at each other that weeping that carrying on this way that adults behaving like children that is not something you can do in front of your kids ever you know life is full of disappointments life is full of scrape knees life is full of injuries you know what happens if you come home and you have to tell your wife that you got fired today you lost your job okay that's bad you know what's worse traumatizing your kid for the rest of their life because they were there in the room when you were screaming and weeping about it right that's a whole separate problem that you've just created because you didn't have the self-discipline to have that conversation with your wife at a starbucks or in the guard somewhere anywhere else right you couldn't have just slowed it down and made that upon me at that time right some people are going to come home from work one day and discover that their wife has been cheating on them their wife has a new boyfriend on the side or they're vice versa right okay so that's bad so that's a problem so that's a trauma in your life but you know what's worse now screaming at each other husband against wife in front of your children and then giving that child the trauma they carry for the rest of their lives you know you want to pretend your kids don't remember i remember it all i'm cursed with a really accurate memory all right i remember it all and um you know what some people watching this video you know you haven't had kids yet yourself and you're going to be you're going to be thinking about your own memories that way but i know i know some of you people watch this video you've already got kids and you've already made this mistake you've already had some of those fights in front of your kids you can kid yourself if they don't remember let me tell you something that impact you've just had in your kids you can never take it back