You know how some groups of parents (myself included) try to accept our kids where they are as well as guide them. For example, although I know that Noah cleans up after himself at Montessori pretty well and that he could do more tidying here, and I kind of wish he would, and I would like him to grow up to be the sort of man who cleans up after himself… I also think he is young and this is his home and it is okay to not demand all good things all the time from him.
So I was thinking about this the larger contexts: Should our kids respect that there is some authority with which we just have to comply? (Like a police officer’s request to get out of the vehicle.) That life is unfair? That you have to work hard for money, generally?
Is it our role as parents to create an environment that closely resembles the so-called real world, or to lean towards something a bit more idealistic?
And I realized that I want to raise a child who fundamentally expects to be treated well, fairly, and so on. But who can adapt to less than ideal circumstances.
I feel like for me, I have the adaptation down okay, but each roadblock seems to confirm a darker, more adversarial world view.
