Daniel makes stuff, and, in his spare time, writes about things like movies, kid culture, and geek stuff.
"Judgy Horseshit" and the Kid- and Parent-Haters

In retrospect, I was apparently far too tame in my response to Details Magazine’s “Is your kid a douchebag?” article.

To compensate, Kelly Hogaboom has the “modern, earnestly-tries parent who’s sick of the Hate” perspective down. She delightfully unravels some of the more absurd generalisations of the Details Magazine piece – and the countless others that have gone before it – and she (fairly) calls foul on its general lack of truthiness.

I know what you’re thinking: Why fuss? It’s a blip on the screen. Yet, I see so much of this sort of thing: an author inexpert on the topic, gathering up a bunch of “authorities” to make a bunch of sweeping claims about Parents and Kids Today, as if today’s parenting culture was a monolith of Borg-like assholes going through the motions, rather than a complex, heavily nuanced series of mores, values, and traditions being fought in the trenches by, you know, real people.

I think that’s just it. Kelly’s response calls out the damaging nature of our society’s apparent infatuation with so-called “Experts” and authority figures who tell us how we’re getting our kids’ lives “wrong” – and it highlights the need for us to acknowledge the overwhelming complexities of parenting (cf. Ayelet Waldman’s “Bad Mother”).

Very rarely is anything in this life simple… and I would say that the Parent-Child relationship is about the furthest thing yet from that.

Feb 19, 2010 :: Tagged under: , , , :: #