No parents want to
be accused of spoiling their children. But speaking to parents about the topic,
I quickly found that their ideas of what constitutes spoiling vary quite a bit.
The definition of “spoil,” according to Webster’s Dictionary, is “…to impair
the quality or effect of character by overindulgence or excessive praise.” Of
course, that leaves us with the dilemma of what is “overindulgence” or
“excessive praise.”
Most likely, parents have struggled
with this quandary since children and parents have existed. As a matter of fact,
the very first recorded instance of a spoiled child is in the Tanach. When Adoniyahu, the son of Dovid Hamelech,
rebelled and wanted to overthrow his father from his own throne, the pasuk tells us that this happened
because Dovid never rebuked him. Adoniyahu therefore believed that he could do
whatever he wanted since his father never got angry at him and never told him
to stop doing a bad thing. (Melachim 1:6)
How does this
concept apply today? Will overindulging our children cause them to rebel like Adoniyahu?
My friend Chani was
not overindulged. She never tires of reminding me of the time she came to my
house to play. We were about ten years old, and she lived a 10-minute walk away.
“As soon as I arrived,” says Chani, “the phone rang. It was my mother, who told
me I had to come home right away. When I asked why, she said that I had
forgotten to hang up my bathing suit. She ordered me to come home and hang it
up. When I complained, her answer was, ‘If you don’t use your brain, you have
to use your feet!’”
I assume that my
friend never forgot to hang up her bathing suit again!
Here’s another example
of old-fashioned discipline: My father was born into a wealthy family in
On the other hand,
my mother told us about her father, who used to say, “Never let a child cry. If
you let them cry, you teach them to be cruel. Respond to their cries and they
will respond to cries of others.”
Two opposing ideas:
Which one is correct? And does it make a difference in the final outcome, the
one we all want: a functioning human being and a mensch?
To Indulge…
I heard a funny story about a three-year-old whose
parents tried hard to teach their children to be satisfied with little. “Bracha was about three or four years old and went to a
local playgroup. One day, she did not want to get in the car to go to
playgroup. Her mother convinced her to get in by promising that if she went
nicely, she would get a jelly bean. When she got to playgroup,
Bracha told her morah that her mother
had promised her a treat because she had come to playgroup without
crying. The morah said, “Did she
promise you a Slurpee?” Bracha thought quietly for a minute, and then said, “Morah,
do you think next time, you could give me a treat?”
Did the morah
just spoil Bracha? Won’t a child who expects one jelly bean as a reward
have an easier time in life than one who expects a Slurpee? That is what I
would have thought, but many do not agree with me.
A family I know prides themselves on living a life of
Torah and being mistapek b’meot, being satisfied with little. Their children
absorbed the idea that there are all kinds of riches. The philosophy was that
we are rich in children, rich in Torah, rich in happiness – just not rich in money!
Dovid, their son, now a lawyer in his 40s, does not agree
that having less is good. He says, “As a child I was always taught that love
and caring were more important than accumulating possessions, and I agree with
the assertion generally. But I learned through my experiences that, to a kid,
love and care can be expressed through toys and material comfort, and a lack of
such things can easily be perceived as a lack of love and care.”
Dovid chooses to raise his family differently. “I feel that, although it is important for children to
learn to deal with adversity, I do not have to provide the adversity. Life will
present adversity in abundance, and it will be beyond our ability as parents to
control. To the extent that we can control it, including by buying
toys, we do. In contrast to my childhood, if there is a fad or a
reasonably-priced toy or game that other children are getting, we'll wait to
find it on sale, or wait for a convenient occasion, and then buy it, even if it’s
not strictly necessary. I don’t think there is a value in deprivation for
character building.”
Rivka has the same philosophy. She explained that she
indulges her children so much that the children themselves have learned to tell
her when it is enough. She says, “I enjoy indulging my children. I want them to
be happy, and it makes me happy to make them happy. So far, I haven’t noticed
that it has harmed them. They have so much that they are satisfied and have
learned to give to others as well. Indulging them has helped them become more
generous.”
I think my mother would have agreed with Dovid and Rivka. She used to tell
us a parable about a man who was trying to train his donkey to survive on less
and less food, and just when he had him nearly trained to survive on nothing –
wouldn’t you know it, the donkey died!
…Or Not to Indulge
Giving children
lots of things is one way of indulging them. There is also behavior. In the story
of Chani and the bathing suit, the mother did not indulge her daughter’s
laziness and irresponsibility, and I assume she insisted on obedience in many
other areas as well. How “unindulging” should a parent be when it comes to
behavior?
A wise man once
said, “If your child is doing something bad but it is unlikely that he will
continue to do it as an adult, you can safely ignore it. For example, if a
child is pulling all the books out of the bookshelf, it is pretty certain that
that won’t be a problem when he is 21!” What about tantrums? I think they might
be an exception to this rule. Although an adult is unlikely to lie on the floor
and kick his feet, the attitude is the same: If I don’t get what I want, I will
scream and yell, act insulted, and be obnoxious until I get it. No one wants to
be responsible for an adult who acts like that!
One father,
echoing the Tanach’s conclusion in the story of Adoniyahu, said, “The greatest
gift you can give your child is the gift of saying no. It teaches your children
self-restraint and self-discipline, which will last them for a lifetime.”
That’s easier said
than done. I, for one, was never was very good at getting my children to
listen. My son tells me that he thinks he did not get enough discipline as a
child. Here is how he remembers his childhood: “I was always the last one in
the neighborhood to be called in to stop the game and go to bed. I didn’t have
to clean up my toys or my room.” When I asked him how it affected him as an
adult, he said, “It doesn’t come naturally to me to take responsibility for
myself. I have to work harder at it.”
Well, it does not
come naturally for some parents to give off an aura of authority. They have to
work harder at it – or not! As one woman explained to me, “I always listened
when my father told me to do something. It wouldn’t have occurred to me not to
listen, but that doesn’t work very well for me and my children. Somehow, I
don’t have that voice of authority.” It doesn’t worry her much, however. “I
don’t think that the fact that my child did not clean the playroom as I
requested means that he will be a good-for-nothing his whole life. I keep on
trying and reminding him about the right way to behave and set a good example,
and I have high hopes that it will work out in the end.”
That Is the Question
One woman I spoke
to said, “Fruit can be spoiled, not children.” Perhaps she has a point. With the innumerable variables involved in parenting, we may be barking up
the wrong tree when trying to determine if we are spoiling our children. Parenting
involves listening and empathizing, guiding and teaching, devotion and caring, etc.
And of course, setting a good example is vital. Discipline is just one piece of
the puzzle. And while
it certainly is easier to parent obedient children, I question how much our
disciplinary style affects them as adults. Moreover, there is
not one rule for all. How and when to indulge or not often depends on the child
and the situation. As Meir, a mental health counselor, says, “One can take the
attitude that indulging or not indulging are not objectively either good or
evil but simply a function of what is needed for that particular person.”
It is also true, I think, that neither extreme – overindulging or complete lack
of restraint – is good. As in the case of David, above, one end of the spectrum
tends to lead to the other, like the proverbial swing of the pendulum. Maybe the truth is that we do not have the control we think
we have. Whether we indulge or don’t indulge, insist on obedience or don’t
insist – in the end, our children will just be who they are. How our children
“turn out” may have more to do with the child’s innate personality than how
they were parented. Some kids are naturally self-disciplined, and some are
naturally drawn to indulgence. Some are naturally giving, while others are
naturally ascetic and self-protective. And there is always hope that whatever “damage”
a parent might have done can be fixed as the child grows into a mensch and learns to mold his or her own
middos.
