"Child Rearing*"

We need to review a hypothetical situation in order to "set the table"... in order to "make sure we are all 'on the same page'"....

You go outside and there is a small child pulling the legs off of a poor helpless insect. Most of us would be aghast and we would be upset. Of course, the right thing to do is to tell the child "no" very firmly and then show them how to stomp the bug under the heel of your shoe like a "normal" person.

We need to do this for this small child under an inbred theory that we all carry around that is "the theory of escalation". So far as we know, this theory is not in any text book. While "we" ("we" here meaning me) have been to colege, we seldom opened an actual "text book".

In any event, this theory holds that children who set down a path - the "wrong path" - will continue down that path because they are "unknowing" and innocent. Their "wrong behavior" will continue and compound. Left without guidance or support this child will grow up to be Charles Manson, or Osama Bin Laden, or Hitler, or whomever is responsible for "speed bumps".

Of course, the answer to this is more government funding. Because more government funding is the answer to everything. If we had more "day care centers", more help for new parents, more "Hooters", then all of this could change.

Or we could do what my parents did and sit you in front of the TV for hours on end. Note 1 to reader: Today "we" (we meaning me) are seeing how many times we can use the "quotation marks". Please let "us" (us meaning me) know if this is "annoying" "you" (you meaning "you"). Note 2 to reader: yes college is misspelled above "on porpose". And "on porpose" is mispelled "on purpose". And mispelled is misspelled "on porpose".

* Rearing as used in the title means "raising". It has nothing to do with a child's actual rear posterior section.