Although this interview with Bill Gates in this week’s edition of TIME Magazine focuses more on the release of Windows Vista, I found the first question and his answer to it rather interesting as a parent:
(TIME) Vista gives parents a lot of control over how their kids use it. Has being a dad changed the way you think about computing?
Gates: For my son, I limit the hours he can use the computer. He was pretty disappointed in that. He said, “Is it going to be this way the rest of my life?” Well, at some age he can pay for his own computer.
I think this pretty much sums up parenthood and the rules we impose upon our children. It’s all a matter of territoriality — which brings me back to my oft-repeated mantra: Parenthood is NOT a democracy. And it rightfully should not be. As a responsibility imposed upon us by nature as the parent, we have to make sure that we abide by the rule that we always draw the line and play our part as parents in our children’s lives
We all went through that stage when we found ourselves resenting the kind of control our parents exercised over us and unfairness of the parent-child dynamics, and I would say it’s true that we don’t really understand it fully until we are on the other side of the fence so to speak. But even before I become a Mom, I already appreciated the way my parents made sure they were a part of my life 110%. While I resented following the rules, I later saw the value of knowing how to follow rules in the real world.
Sadly, it is a lesson we have to be taught early on. Learning it in a child’s teen years can be a futile attempt at change. Rules become invisible shackles instead of mere parameters to live by. I see this happening in my almost 17-year-old stepson’s life today. He resents having to live with us and refuses to even show a semblance of trying to coexist peacefully — to him, we are forced to live with the situation as much as he is. It didn’t have to be that way, but there is a resistance to compromise when your 16-year-old brain focuses only on “me” instead of the bigger world around him. He can’t understand why he has to pick up the trash that fails to make it to the bin (someone can pick that up for him), why it’s not good to finish the whole box of cookies someone else brought home just in case someone else wants some of it, or why he shouldn’t leave his dirty socks lying around the living room, or worse, why he needs to wash the glass he had used or the plate he ate on before someone picks it up for him.
Now that Angel is almost 3 years old, I am exerting extra effort to show him there is a whole world of people beyond him and his Mom and Dad. That beyond his two grandmas who live with him and his half brother whom he sees once or twice a week, there are people we don’t know out there, and the rule of thumb should be “Be nice.” So concepts like “Sharing” and gratitude and appreciation by way of saying “Thank you” are things I’m trying to imbue in his value system.
I have successfully showed him we must wait our turn in line when the situation calls for it, and that we have to consider the people ahead of us. That when someone is asleep, he has to speak in hushed tones — so now he is the one who tells us to whisper because his half brother is still sleeping. And when he eats his goldfish crackers or cheerios, it doesn’t hurt to offer his food to others to share. So while he knows his toys and clothes are his, he doesn’t get all possessive when we tell him to share his toys with others, and he stops to think before saying “no” when I tease him I like his favorite shirt and want to borrow it.
And this early, we’re teaching him that our rules are what must be followed in this home. We have defined the rules of Parent and child — but not without defining it in a loving environment. It’s a tricky balance to achieve, but it’s doable. The thing that matters, I believe, is constantly working at it, and not getting relaxed when everything is going smoothly. You cannot reinforce values enough throughout a child’s life — and the rewards or lack of it will come when they start going out into the real world.
As Alan told the stepson just recently, much as he wants to work things out with his son, if he cannot follow our rules and he cannot leave peacefully with us, he can always choose to go. Last Thursday he left the house purportedly to go to his Mom’s. The grandma thought it was Friday and thought nothing of it until my Mom reminded her that the following day was a schoolday. The boy didn’t show up at his Mom’s and we don’t know where he is right now. He’ll just show up Sunday or Monday evening — and we’re supposed to just live with that. That might be allowable for the stepson, but this early, I’m trying to stop that from happening to my own little boy, 15 years hence — I’m getting there a day at a time.
