Google moment. I’m using that now instead of the outdated senior moment mostly because the blame shifts outward. I had to look up an advertisement.
Oh wait. Prince is dead. Shit.
Ok, I had to look up a TV ad. They were showing it hot and heavy and stopped. I remember everything except the website the ad was actually urging you to go. It’s this nice WASPy dad and his pretty WASPy boy palying different sports and the voice over is like “You taught him how to hit a curve (they’re playing baseball)” “You taught how to hit the receiver (football)” “…the net (hocky)” “Even the open man (basketball)” “But you haven’t told him what not to hit, talk to him about violence against women”
Ok, I fudged some of dialogue, but it’s pretty close if not verbatim. The website is something like teachthemyoung dot something. I got a lot of hits on google, but not to the website, but to the ad. There are also Op Ed web style pieces all over.
I’m not a professional author of a child rearing for dummies or trendy impulse child rearing book buyers. I was, however, a dad and a social worker for kids. First off, the idea of women should be taken out, it implies it’s ok to hit boys or dogs or anything else. But mostly it’s a bit like taking your kid to a firing range to teach him not to shoot women (even better reason to add boys, dogs, squirrels, carbon based things …).
That’s not where domestic violence comes from; not being told it was wrong. Ninety percent or higher of the time it comes from role modeling from the parents, e.g. violence in the home (sometimes from mommy. Does anybody really want a beaten dad teaching their traumatized son who is apparently really good at every sport, not to hit women? I’m fine with message, just not the context.).
There’s a pretty simple rule with kids and dogs. I’m going to tell you what it is. When you say “No, don’t chew on my foot” most kids and dogs hear chew on my foot. It is the gist of the sentence. No, will be heard by most dogs, but to a dog owned by someone who think telling them not to chew on feet is effective training, all no means is to stop until the pink tall thing is done making noise. That’s only a small piece of why talking to your kid about what not to hit is a marginal idea.
Another old and simple axiom is Don’t fix it if it’s not broken. If your kid isn’t hitting anything outside the rules of the sports you’ve taught him (almost impossible to teach football or boxing with shouting “Hit that sonofabitch” at least twenty times an hour) you don’t need to correct the behavior. You might want to reward it. I’m not saying telling your kid not to hit girls will give him the idea to hit girls. I’m not saying correcting behaviors that don’t exist makes you look like an idiot or an asshole to your kid. I’m just saying before you flapped your gums there wasn’t a risk of any of that. Sort of.
I mean anyone’s kid could grow up to be president or a serial killer or both, but your influence is greater when you demonstrate, role model good behavior than try talking about probabilities. You know who beats women? Women beaters. I don’t know what the stats are on WASP kids who’s dad taught him every sport, but I bet it’s lower than WASP kids who’s dad took off with a hooker after beating the kids mom. Sorry, my apologies to hookers, they really have nothing to do with this, well, they could, but, shit, you know.
Of all the things to teach your kids early that one seems less pertinent. I’ll bet the stats on women beaters show a general lower level of education; you could teach your kid math, science, art and Literature. I bet most of them don’t patch the women up afterwards. You could teach your kid medicine. I bet some of them have been on cops, which means they signed a waiver to appear in their drunken barefoot criminal rampage. You could teach your kids law or moderation.
One thing that covers all that would be to teach your kid tolerance. Often when a kid does something really fucked the parents are blamed. Often it’s a good place to place the blame. When discussing it as a general town hall type thing someone always whines about kids not being taught in the home. The whiners are often right. So, why does this ad think of all the things nobody is teaching the kid, that an ad about all the sports that they haven’t really taught their kid, is going to get parents to teach their kids one very specific thing to not do?
Sorry, I’m just rambling. It’s good for the paws.
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