What are your thoughts on the saying  Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child.

I had to look this phrase up even though I had a generalization of what the phrase meant beforehand. My male cousins are the epitome of this phrase and despite of not having any experience of being a parent (other than to plants), I can absolutely see where the logic might had come from – parents were not treated fairly as a child, so they determined to treat their offspring the opposite of how they were treated.

Even then, I’m not sure if it’s such a good thing to employ when raising a child as how a child is raised will no doubt influence how that child will be when he/she grows up.

I believe I’ve mentioned on this blog before that both my maternal and paternal side of the family favor boys over girls. So my male cousins were spoiled as a child while the girls (i.e. me) were often treated like the “accidental” child. I can’t recall how many times I was blamed or punished for something my male cousins done and how many times I was left out of something while my male cousins were pampered like they were “little kings”. It’s sickening now to see how bias the families are toward the feminine gender.

I’m not saying parents should use brute force to discipline their child but a child should not be spoiled. They can spoil and pamper themselves when they’re an adult with a stable income and good job.

My mom often like to compare me to my males cousins and she would say, “Serve their parents right to spoil their sons, look at how they turned out.”

• One is raising a cat in his mother’s apartment. In his late 20’s, he has no job, no education beyond a high school diploma, and plans to live in his mother’s apartment forever.
• Another is working in the grocery store while going to school. Also in his late 20’s, he lives in master bedroom of his parents’ house, paying minimal rent and only planning on finishing his Associate degree after 4 years of college.
• Finally, you’ve probably heard me talk about him in my #WeekendCoffeeShare post last weekend. When he was a child, whenever his parents refused to buy the thing he wanted, he would throw himself to the floor and throw a huge tantrum. I’ve seen it firsthand and it was embarrassing as heck with every adult in the vicinity staring. His parents always gave in to him whims. Now, also in his late 20’s, he’s always finding ways to make a quick buck despite the legality of the means, recently, the law caught up with him and he’s currently waiting to be arraigned and sentenced for who knows how long behind bars.