"Mommy, Where Do Brats Come From?"
In Toward A Psychology Of Being, Abraham H. Maslowe writes:

Much disturbance in children and adolescents can be understood as a consequence of the uncertainty of adults about their values. As a consequence, many youngsters in the United States live not by adult values but by adolescent values, which of course are immature, ignorant and heavily determined by confused, adolescent needs.

Yeah, heavily determined by the confused, adolescent needs of their confused, adolescent "parents." I, on the other hand, was raised in Michigan by grownup parents who can best be described as ìloving fascists.î When I was about eight, I thought I could fly, but the idea that I would be loud in an adult place or kick the back of somebodyís seat did not exist in the universe as I understood it.

I talked to my parents on the phone on Sunday, prior to posting this entry about an underparented brat on a recent flight I took, and asked my dad if my two sisters and I ever threw screaming fits as children. He said no, ìnot after you were little babies,î and added, ìWe always talked to you girls as adults, and expected you to act like adults when we took you to restaurants or other adult places. You were children, so you didnít always do the right thing. But, weíd say girls, ëthatís not done here,í and youíd listen.î

Apply my dad's words on parenting to the relatively recent controversy about medicating boys out of misbehavior with Ritalin. Now, I take Ritalin as an adult (ìconcentration vitamins,î I call my little yellow pills, which help me keep my Jack Russell terrier of a brain on a short leash to my deadline). But, what I want to know is, how come we suddenly have hordes of wild boys swinging from the classroom ceiling tiles? Or, rather, why didnít we have them when I was growing up? Just a guess, but the culprit isnít something in the water, or everybodyís favorite cultural punching bag, too much television, but, simply, too little parenting.

P.S. We werenít allowed to watch TV growing up, save the Wonderful World Of Disney (and then there was the occasional Get Smart we snuck when my mom ran out to the store), but all the other kids watched a whole lot of TV, and not one boy I went to school with ever acted, in class, like something that escaped from the monkey house at the zoo.

No...surprise, surprise...boys I grew up with didnít get out of line because they knew the remedy for it wasnít a tiny paper cup of juice and a handful of pills, but getting drop-kicked to Saturn and/or grounded for all eternity. (Just picture yourself at age 45, coming home after work to sit sullenly in your room in your parents' house while everybody else is living it up at the bar.) When presented with these alternatives, shutting the hell up and listening to your teacher suddenly seems a very wise idea.