tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post6645767883106422307..comments2023-12-20T04:18:41.617-06:00Comments on The Hunting of the Snark: Authoritarian MotheringSusan of Texashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00076915322771385454noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-9354770028612034782011-10-13T01:25:12.679-05:002011-10-13T01:25:12.679-05:00The woman has issues. I take some solace in knowi...The woman has issues. I take some solace in knowing she's a liar, though, which might mean her sociopathy isn't as effective as she portrays it. As noted already, an eleven-year old would not think "G" was a grade or that basketball gave them, and a nine-year old would not (except in jest or play) say he wanted to grow up to be a squirrel.Batocchiohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02193752396025012825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-11671204161197564112011-10-08T18:05:38.803-05:002011-10-08T18:05:38.803-05:00To be fair to Kaczor, she's just doing her par...To be fair to Kaczor, she's just doing her part to create more conservatives.satchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-50348356633533763032011-10-08T08:25:29.167-05:002011-10-08T08:25:29.167-05:00She is so mean.
But this isn't a liberal vs. c...She is so mean.<br />But this isn't a liberal vs. conservative thing. Even though religious right-wingers might take it to the extreme or be more explicit about it, the idea that children must submit to the authority of their parents is pervasive our culture. <br /><br />Parents who do not subscribe to that belief -- who strive to resolve conflict with their children the same way they would resolve conflict with their spouse or coworkers, who do not use punishment or rewards as teaching tools, who do not assume that they will know better than their children in all circumstances -- are offered the same dire predictions about just how doomed their children are. People have to believe that being mean to their children is necessary and for their own good, and most are not willing to consider the alternative.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-64573780690725738882011-10-07T14:24:17.170-05:002011-10-07T14:24:17.170-05:00Self-esteem does have to be earned, but praise (as...Self-esteem does have to be earned, but praise (as John Updike once said) "nourishes us," and encouragement is not the same as false praise. This woman--whether or not her anecdotes are true or fictional--is a self-centered, and therefore moral, hypocrite.<br /><br />Assuming, as she apparently does, that every interaction with her children is a power contest that she can "win," she's guaranteed to influence her kids into growing up "respecting" her but lacking that fundamental kind of self-esteem called "confidence." <br /><br />Plus, there's a difference between "humility" and "modesty." She may think she's invoking Christian humility, but isn't that only relevant vis a vis God? Her kids are going to grow up perpetually one-down, striving (or despairing at being unable to strive) to please the all-knowing Mom, who will age into just another cranky ignoramus before their eyes.Mr.Wonderfulnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-24469234325885924392011-10-07T14:06:26.547-05:002011-10-07T14:06:26.547-05:00http://www.nationalreview.com/home-front/279374/se...http://www.nationalreview.com/home-front/279374/sesame-street-tells-fib-about-hunger/julie-gunlock<br /><br />At least she's not Julie Gunlock.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-27853524376506617372011-10-07T12:32:59.421-05:002011-10-07T12:32:59.421-05:00Oh my god that woman is unbelievable. And of cours...Oh my god that woman is unbelievable. And of course she got it from her mother. <br /><br />So much passive aggression. And agressive aggression. And contempt, disinterest, and vanity. Jesus.Susan of Texashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00076915322771385454noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-16879155250022591932011-10-07T12:30:31.425-05:002011-10-07T12:30:31.425-05:00Those last couple paragraphs are bone-chilling, do...Those last couple paragraphs are bone-chilling, downpuppy. I'm a new parent, and I can't even imagine the level of contempt one must have toward their children in order to behave that way.atatnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-25218718005526983502011-10-07T11:52:02.699-05:002011-10-07T11:52:02.699-05:00The NRO article is 4 years old, and the basketball...The NRO article is 4 years old, and the basketball joke was old when Joe Miller told it.<br /><br />Since then, Ms Kaczor has shown her ability to tailor her writing to her audience - http://www.catholicity.com/commentary/kaczor/08133.html<br /><br /><i>Monsignor quickly threw in something about a girl from our parish who considered the army. She decided against it – seems she wanted to go to college instead, but it was the only precedent he could lay hold of, and I had to give him credit. "Ann would make an excellent soldier," I responded. But before I could really get going on the topic, Ann had divested herself of my arm and Monsignor had made his get-away.<br /><br />"Why do you do that? That is sooo rude." Ann hissed. "You know I only said that one time. One time I said I didn't know if I wanted to go to college, and you will not let it die. What is wrong with you?"<br /><br />"One time" is not exactly true. In reality, Ann proclaims her disdain for college every time a report card is mailed home and she has to confront her grades, which stubbornly insist on reflecting her effort. Her defense – because what high school girl will admit to poor time-management, abject laziness, and wishful thinking – is to declare, in an avant-garde kind of way, that she's not at all sure she wants to go to college anyway. So take that, Harvard!<br /><br />But because she is playing into my game so beautifully, I let it go. The argument continues, of course, for many minutes. She is 17, and no argument is really over until she feels she has won. And I let her, knowing that the real victory, the one I learned about from my own mother, is mine.<br /><br />"Set the bar low," my mother would advise her friends, "and watch your kids leap over it. Nothing so galls a child, so spurs him on, as being underestimated." And though her friends found her Dr. Spock-ish advice barbaric (it was the 1980s and the psychologists had just discovered self-esteem), my mother was actually right.</i><br /><br />I do believe that she's manipulative.Downpuppyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10312490198813632190noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-89675045440554819572011-10-07T11:43:37.108-05:002011-10-07T11:43:37.108-05:00Yes, you're right; I've seen mothers who a...Yes, you're right; I've seen mothers who are selfish and malicious pretend to be strict but more often I see mothers who expect their children to gratify their vanity or follow a certain path, and are constantly monitoring their children.Susan of Texashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00076915322771385454noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-5706555883710796492011-10-07T09:31:40.738-05:002011-10-07T09:31:40.738-05:00I think you are all very mistaken if you think tha...I think you are all very mistaken if you think that Mrs. "Put a Sock in it" and "Children should be seen and Not Heard" ever, in fact, tells her children to put a sock in it or sends them away to play instead of letting them annoy their elders. This kind of "I'm a tough mommy with standards" kind of posturing often goes hand in hand with smothering, overattentive, and omnipresent mothering. Not that its any better. In fact the same contempt she has for her readers probably exists for her children. If you write dishonestly and in a pandering way, catering to your readers desire for the easy parable, you probably do the same to your children.<br /><br />aimaiaimaihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03956073425680585780noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-14544913552812080422011-10-07T07:27:27.134-05:002011-10-07T07:27:27.134-05:00I think I met her son.I think I <a href="http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2324076288/tt0054215" rel="nofollow">met her son</a>.fishhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01522672049371678717noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-66993682852952231542011-10-06T22:38:43.477-05:002011-10-06T22:38:43.477-05:00Out of morbid curiosity I checked out The Home Fro...Out of morbid curiosity I checked out <i>The Home Front</i> and saw a surprising number of K-Lo posts. Does Kathryn Jean have something she wants to tell us?Bradnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-61303592523048482582011-10-06T22:14:46.614-05:002011-10-06T22:14:46.614-05:00"She humiliates her children to be exalted.&q..."She humiliates her children to be exalted."<br /><br />It's all about her. "If you don't like it, kid, put a sock in it."<br /><br />She's the smirking bully in school as a parent.<br /><br />(In the future there will be Taylorist programs for children. A nation of humble and obedient wage slaves.)<br /><br />Her slender on praise and fat on humiliation approach mirrors the worst genus of social conformism practiced by adolescents in school.<br /><br />The sadism of incentivizing self criticism at an age when confidence is most tested.....(sigh)<br /><br />This woman is a proud monster.Anatole Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09475202797984385346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-66428404516456254202011-10-06T21:26:00.905-05:002011-10-06T21:26:00.905-05:00And when,seven or eight years from now, her childr...And when,seven or eight years from now, her children are Bristol Palin without the contacts or worse, she will be blaming the schools and teachers.<br /><br />In fact, she's <em>all-effing-ready</em> blaming the education system ("we are racing to nowhere"), while admitting she wants her kids to be failures and bullying her kids into not being successes.<br /><br />Sometimes, perhaps, mercy killing should not be limited to old age, while children who plead "I'm an orphan" may have a point. Even while they are still one of seven.Ken Houghtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01440837287933536370noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-8399320310325440682011-10-06T19:08:27.023-05:002011-10-06T19:08:27.023-05:00The notion that self-esteem must be earned, that c...The notion that self-esteem must be earned, that children should feel like crap about themselves unless they are high-achieving is one of the more pernicious evils.Lurking Canadiannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-54752713251653059022011-10-06T18:58:56.042-05:002011-10-06T18:58:56.042-05:00This whole thing reads like a rehash of Tbogg'...This whole thing reads like a rehash of Tbogg's blessed series "America's Worst Mother (TM)" with her children Chlamydia, Furbender, Abstract and Chiton.<br /><br />Also this pose of faux humility and aw shucks "parentin' is easy as fallin' offa log" is so sterotyped and ritualized that as Roy would say she could practically come out and shout "Number 12" bow and take the applause from a crowd that knows how its done as well as she does.<br /><br />But having sat through a bizarre meeting of upper class mothers last night I can assure you the confusion between who the child is and who the mother is is rampant and unfeigned. I ended up holding the hand of a young mother of a 3,4 and 5 year old--and no, I didn't blurt out "why the fuck don't you figure out how this sex thing works and try spacing the damn things--who was worried that her children liked to be together too much and didn't seem to seek out and cherish "alone time." She also referenced Race to Nowhere and competition and overscheduled kids and was yearning to raise children who were unstructured and blah blah blah but...didn't I think that they should want time alone to work on their projects? (I know you are dying to know what pearls of wisdom I imparted. It was basically to tell her that she wanted more alone time and she should try getting it for herself but that kids at that age like playign together like puppies.)<br /><br />aimaiaimaihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03956073425680585780noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-45629468844080042112011-10-06T18:27:38.581-05:002011-10-06T18:27:38.581-05:00People with low self-esteem do not try to prove th...People with low self-esteem do not try to prove their worth, largely because they feel the have none. The Cornerites and their "let them die" ilk remind those so afflicted every damn day.<br /><br />And as for that vile woman - well, somebody needs to kindly explain to her that bragging about humility is still bragging, and pretty much voids any claim to it.Clever Pseudonymnoreply@blogger.com