Then and Now: It's Still The Same

I like to remind myself to keep things into perspective as much as possible. It’s the existentialist in me, I suppose. I can ruminate over something to the point of obsession, but in the end I try to remind myself that it is all a matter of perspective and it is all relative. The glass is neither half full nor half empty - it is just a 16 ounce glass with 8 ounces of water.

Lately my obsession has been with how to discipline my very willful children whithout breaking their spirits or mine. I just want to do it right, you know? I figure the least I can do is read a lot and learn, learn, learn. So there I was researching on the internet how I can become a better parent and hopefully raise happy, healthy, respectable, well rounded children. And I came upon this quote:

“Our youths love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love to chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when their elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

As I was reading this, I was shaking my head in full agreement, telling myself, “Yes! Yes! That is it and that’s the problem. Kids today are running amok, but how do we as parents combat this downward trend and churn out kids that are better than that?”

But then I saw that the quote was by Socrates, circa 400 B.C.

Perspective. We’ve been screwing it up for centuries.