DON’T BE THE COOL PARENT

Just as there seem to be too many of today’s parents who are over-involved in wanting to make life as easy as possible for their children (see my previous post: “Don’t Be a Helicopter or Bulldozer or Bubble-Wrap Parent”), there are also too many parents these days who purposely parent in a style that will lead to them being seen as cool by not only their own kids, but their kids’ friends.

What your child doesn’t need is a 6-foot-tall friend who is going bald and developing a beer-belly – aka the cool dad – or a graying-hair friend who is old enough to drink and closer to menopause than to puberty – aka the cool mom. Your child can always find other friends, but your child cannot find other parents. What your child needs are seasoned “old” folks who are both willing and able to model responsibility and maturity, which includes sometimes needing to give your son or daughter displeasing orders or serious discipline, knowing at a minimum there will be a look of disappointment on your child’s face and at a maximum there will be screams from your child of “I hate you!”

Children may not come out and say so, but they want their parents to show them mom and dad care enough to lay down the law and follow through on consequences. In this way, children feel secure and know they are loved. Yes, you should have an emotional relationship with your child, and not simply act as a drill sergeant. But if you move 180-degrees away from the drill sergeant role and try to act as your child’s best friend more than their mom or dad, it will come at the cost of your authority, thus undermining your role as a parent. 

In my 34 years as a Catholic school principal, I interacted with many cool parents, and I related their actions to the attempting-to-be cool substitute teachers I observed. These sub-par subs were those who did not follow the regular teacher’s lesson plan and classroom management rules and didn’t put any effort into keeping the students on-task for the school day. Trying to be the cool sub, he or she would let the students goof off, talk out, and sit at whatever desk they wanted. By acting in this way, the sub not only created an effortless day for both him or her and the students where no learning took place, but reveled in receiving accolades from the kids and being seen more like an older peer or a celebrity than an authority figure. Naturally, it was the cool substitute teacher whom the students pleaded with their regular teacher to bring back next time. But I resisted in calling back those subs, because when they were in the school building I saw the least productive educational lessons and witnessed the loudest and rowdiest classrooms.

So moving scenarios from the classroom to the home, let me share some examples of the type of actions taken by those moms or dads who are trying to be considered cool parents?

• The cool parent, when driving his or his children and their friends in the car, will let the kids listen to music with obscene and/or sexualized lyrics. This will show the youngsters how “dope” or “lit” mom or dad is! (And if you don’t know what the current slang words “dope” or “lit” mean, you are most likely not a cool parent.)
• The cool parent buys his or her child a smart phone when the kid is still in elementary or middle school. And to really prove how much the cool parent loves his or her child, the phone needs to be the latest (and most expensive) one on the market.
• The cool parent doesn’t compel his or her kids to attend Mass. Often it is the dad who, competing to be cooler than mom, will force his wife to perform the thankless job of nagging and cajoling on Sunday mornings. Instead of waking up the family to go to Mass, the cool dad believes he will get his children’s idolization if he allows the kids to sleep in or if he substitutes going to church with going to a fun event that weekend.

Let’s delve into the example of a cool parent buying his or her child a smart phone at too early of an age – which I define as any age that is too young to get a driver’s license. The nationwide average age that children are given their first smart phone is age 10, and when I was a school principal, I recall students as young as first graders sharing the news that their parents gave them phones for Christmas. Would a parent give a 5 or 10-year-old an X-rated video to watch? Of course not! But when a child is given a smart phone – at any age – a parent is actually giving the youngster access to a pocket computer that is seconds away from seeing the most offensive and indecent images. These images can never be erased from the child’s memory and will cause a premature and inappropriate exposure to human sexuality that will impair how in the future they relate sexually to the opposite sex.

Even without the porn-problem, cell phones in the hands of kids are all too often used for excessive delving into social media and texting, which frequently evolves into negative actions such as sexting and cyber bullying – where your child will either grow into the perpetuator role or the victim role. Plus, there are some studies that have shown kids who spend more than three hours a day on social sites are twice as likely to develop mental health issues. One big example is how in recent years gender dysphoria has been shown to be a social contagion due to kids, especially girls, getting influenced via their excessive time online on social media. Other studies consistently show that social media is detrimental to a child’s happiness and well-being.

The cool parent who buys a smart phone for his or her 15-year-old or younger child often focuses on the “safety factor” of wanting the child to be able to call mom or dad in an emergency. If that’s the reason, there are so-called dumb phones parents can buy kids that will be able to call mom, dad, or 9-1-1 but won’t be able to access the internet or text friends. Unfortunately, a cool parent wouldn’t want their cool child to be seen with such an old-fashioned piece of technology, so it’s rare for these type of parents to resort to this wiser purchase.

Now let’s say you’re one of those rare – and intelligent – parents who do not purchase smart phones for your children until no earlier than when they are mature upperclassmen in high school. You may think you have eliminated a problem, but you’ve only just lessened it because friends of your age 5-to-15 year-old kids will most likely own smart phones and expose your youngsters to the associated-dangers with porn access, sexting acts, cyber-bullying, etc. On his radio show, Catholic author and speaker Dr. Tom Curran spoke of how he tackles the problem of cell phones with his kids’ friends. 

Dr. Curran with his wife Kari are the parents of nine children, and whenever one of Dr. Curran’s kids has friends over at their house, he tells the friends that the Curran household rule is his kids can’t have phones, so all visitors’ cell phones need to be parked with him and his wife. When the friends would quickly shoot back with the concern that the phone was needed in case their parents needed to contact them, Dr. Curran would allow the child to right then and there text or call their parents to let them know that the kid’s phone wasn’t going to be available while visiting the Currans, so the parents should contact Dr. and Mrs. Curran directly if they needed to get a hold of their child. Of course, none of the friends ended up feeling a need to contact their parents with this information once they realized their plea (or ploy) was not going to be heard. 

So, was Dr. Curran considered the cool parent by his children’s friends? No way! But did the kids end up being exposed to seeing bad things or texting mean things when the friends played together at his house? No way! Without worrying how he comes across to the friends or how much he embarrasses his children, Dr. Curran sensibly and proudly follows the same motto uncool dads like him and me adhere to:

“Firm, consistent, mature parenting

is more valuable and more constructive than loose, fluid, cool parenting.”

The best parenting philosophy is not to make sure your kids and their friends see you as cool but to make sure your kids (and their friends when they are around your family) see you as the straightforward parent who expects all to adhere to the family’s rules/norms – be them rules/norms regarding phones, attending Mass, or obscene language – and who follows through with consequences if these rules are broken or norms ignored.

When you act as the family’s authority figure and set limits with your youngsters that might include having to follow up with natural consequences should your children push the boundaries, at worst they will tell you they “hate” you, or at best they will reluctantly concede after first whining. Regardless, responsible parenting means having high standards for behavior and setting limits, which are necessary for your child’s sake so that he or she will learn to figure out what’s safe and what’s not safe, what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable. Our all-loving Father had no problem setting standards and limits for His children, as we know in Deuteronomy 5 when He revealed the Ten Commandments and also in Genesis 3 when He dealt with His first kids, who broke the rules of eating from a specific tree.

Similar to how their children have peer pressure in being compelled to follow the “bad” crowd, parents today feel peer pressure when they struggle to resist imitating their kids’ friends’ parents who are considered cool because of how they come across to youngsters as chummy, older peers more than responsible family leaders. An example of parent peer pressure is a child badgering mom and dad with, “But all the other parents are letting their kids go to a party!” which results in mom and dad giving in to the pressure and letting their child go, even though they aren’t sure the party will be supervised properly, they don’t know all the kids who will be there, and/or the party is going to run later than the family’s stated curfew. We need more parents to grow a backbone, act like mature adults, and resist the peer pressure of wanting to be seen as just as “dope” and “lit” as the cool parents.

But growing a backbone during our current time of a pervasively immoral culture with a weakening of the traditional family unit requires an ability and willingness to employ some virtues that society no longer values, such as:

• Act with integrity;
• Don’t cave when you are criticized or given negative feedback;
• Don’t worry about what other people think;
• Be willing to take a stand on an issue or principle you know is right but isn’t popular;
• Challenge yourself (and your children) to take the more difficult path.

To help develop your backbone of an upright and resolute family leader and to lessen the peer pressure put on you, it’s a good idea to find other uncool parents in your children’s social groups who have similar principles as you. There is strength in numbers for these times when you have to put your foot down and not let your child go to that party, or not let your child get a cell phone when too young, or not let your child attend a game in place of attending Mass. Your child won’t be able to get away with the argument, “But all the other parents… !” if they realize that some of your closest parent-friends follow your same philosophy on parenting. More importantly, you will have a support group with whom to consult should you feel misgivings after making a tough parenting decision that aggravates your child. You also could learn some smart, novel parenting tricks from other uncool parents if you share parent-child battlefield stories and successful strategies. 

I’m sure by now you have received my not-so-subtle piece of advice: DON’T BE THE COOL PARENT! Being an uncool parent means to not strive to be your children’s best friend, to be the family’s leader in setting and upholding strict, common sense family rules, to take a stand without regard to if your children will like it, and to not be afraid to publicly – in front of your kids’ friends and their parents – come off as a stick-in-the-mud and “dweeb.” (By the way, if you don’t know what a “dweeb” is, then that’s a good sign you’re not a cool parent.)

The result of being uncool is your loving, concerned actions, while perhaps not appreciated by your kids in that moment of time, will pay off in the long run as you raise responsible, cooperative children who will learn about necessary boundaries, realistic expectations, and what classic, authentic parenting looks like.