This story of a radio talk show host being kicked in the head for something he had said on air had a particular resonance with me today.
Yesterday on a public playground I overheard a child, maybe 5, complain to her father that a boy had called her a name. The father told the girl what to do next time that happened: kick the boy.
Having a 2-year-old means frequenting public playgrounds. And that means witnessing bad parenting on an almost daily basis. It’s really discouraging. Yet when watching and talking with the good parents who, by all appearances, have no more money or education than the bad parents, it is also a reminder that income and education levels are insufficient to explain the behavior of parents or their children.
Most of the kids have the same or similar societal influences and publicly provided opportunities for education and advancement. You can’t predict their behavior by looking at their clothes or the car they arrived in. But you can watch their parents for five minutes and then match the child to the parent with a surprising degree of accuracy.
