Hypocritical Parenting

I’ve run into some problems with kids and young adults lately. It’s got me thinking...asking questions about why things are the way they are.... If we don't approve of society, then why do we allow it to raise our children? Why is it that every time some kid flips out at school we rush to find someone to place the blame on? I know who is to blame. I looked in the mirror and there I found the one at fault. It is me. It is also you. We hide behind chaos and call it freedom. Freedom of religion, (freedom from religion), and freedom of speech. What we have here in the United States is chaos now. I have a hard time believing that this is what our God-respecting forefathers envisioned. Freedom of religion and freedom of speech are supposed to protect the honest expression of ideals and to institute tolerance of differences. It was not intended to assist in the proliferation of hate groups and pornography. In the 70's and early 80's, when most of today's parents grew up, one of the sayings of the day was "You are what you eat". It was true, at least in part. We are the essence of everything we put into our bodies spirits and minds. Substances enter our bodies from any of the 5 senses, not just taste, substance enters our consciousness from every manner. We are allowing our children to be poisoned. Most of the time we give them the poison ourselves. We've forgotten how to be parents. I'm no better than you are. It isn't easy to tell your child no. We feel guilty because we aren't home much. Then we "fix" it by working even more hours to make more money, so we can buy our kids more gifts, gifts they don't need and probably shouldn't have, because we feel so guilty about not being home. Maybe we need to quit working overtime, and spend some time with our children. We grew up during the great "pop psyche" era. We have been told so many times how terrible "bad feelings" are that we give-in to almost everything our children request to prevent them having any "bad feelings". We don't want to damage our children. Our parents, I'm discovering, were not wrong. Guilt serves a purpose. Shame serves a purpose. Even anger serves a purpose. Those are the emotions that spur a person to do better. To not allow our children to feel them is equivalent to taking away their conscience. It's time we give our children the benefit of feeling bad. It might do us all some good. When I was a child, my mother used to tell me that my behavior was a reflection of her. She was right. Right now we parents don't look so hot in the mirror I'm looking at.