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You aren't being lambasted for keeping your kids away from bad influences.
You're being lambasted for being elitist.
My list of bad influences includes people who think they're better than everyone else.
I don't know that I would call Ivory's thinking elitist, it is just very naive.
An elitist is more along the lines of a person who thinks it's o.k. for their kids to "experiment" as long as they are doing so with the "right crowd". Once you get into that line of thinking, just about anything goes - cheating, drugs, drinking, stealing, DUI. Just don't get caught doing it.
For the poster who asked - Eddie Haskell was a character on Leave it to Beaver. He behaved and looked like the kid that every parent would love for their child to hang around - mannerly, well dressed, sweet as could be. But the minute the parents turned their backs - Eddie became nothing but trouble and did his best to lead his friends astray.
Of course I don't speak for everyone, but I'm gonna say it's a given that parents want their kids to stay away from bad influences, people who do things that lead to harm of self or others.
I take issue with the OP's definitions of all kinds of things based on the other thread in which she basically says that as long as people behave in a way she likes and dress in a way she likes, they're "good people." I guess naivete is at the root of her definitions of success, good, bad etc.
Her assertions that kids involved in sports are all on the good list, band kids are on the good list, sports parents are on the good list, "dress and sweater = good, purple hair = bad."
That's why the poll is flawed. There are more options than "keep away" or "expose." I used the word "elitist" because it reminds me of the kind of "gated community" thinking, the false sense of security that makes some people erroneously believe they can build a bubble where only "good" can enter.
Of course I don't speak for everyone, but I'm gonna say it's a given that parents want their kids to stay away from bad influences, people who do things that lead to harm of self or others.
I take issue with the OP's definitions of all kinds of things based on the other thread in which she basically says that as long as people behave in a way she likes and dress in a way she likes, they're "good people." I guess naivete is at the root of her definitions of success, good, bad etc. Her assertions that kids involved in sports are all on the good list, band kids are on the good list, sports parents are on the good list, "dress and sweater = good, purple hair = bad."
It's all very 1950s. And yes, incredibly naive.
I think that many good kids are just what Ivory described. They dress nicely for school, are mannerly in class, are involved in extra-curricular activities, they have interested parents, etc.
But within that bright, shining group there are sometimes one or two Eddie Haskells, too.
I suppose I am an "other." Of course I don't want my kids hanging out or being best friends with kids who value drug use, violence, etc., because I don't want my kids engaging in those behaviors. However, I agree with other posters who have said that I want my kids to know how to deal with people who do value those things in order to know how to handle themselves and also how to be decent to people even if they vastly disagree with their choices. I don't need to artificially expose them to bad influences, life is going to take care of that for me, no matter where they go to school.
As for the examples of what constitutes a good or bad influence, the OP and I disagree on that quite a bit. While the general rule is that kids involved in activities have less time to get into trouble (and I agree), I have known one too many trouble-making drug-addicted HS athletes to think there aren't plenty of exceptions to that rule. Same goes for high SES kids. And purple hair is an indicator of purple hair, nothing else.
Last edited by eastwesteastagain; 10-18-2012 at 07:18 AM..
I had to pick "other", because it's not really a valid poll. Like others have stated, of course I don't want my kids hanging out with kids who are dangerous in some way. I don't go out of my way to expose them to negative influences. But I also think it's important to take each situation on an individual basis rather than issuing blanket statements that they cannot associate with "certain types."
And like I said before, it is incredibly naive to assume that the cheerleader with the nice clothes and hair is a good influence.
I have to laugh at the purple hair thing. I had a sort of friend a couple of years ago who quit being my friend when I dyed a purple streak into my hair, because "I just can't associate with people with purple hair." And we were adults.
I suppose after a certain age, the way a kid dresses indicated what kind of person they are. Once a kid is old enough to work and buy their own clothes, then maybe you can tell what kind of person they are by what they wear. Before that, all you can tell is how much their parents make, or how much their parents care about clothes. There are nice kids at my daughter's school that dress like slobs. There are kids who come every day all dressed up, and then you see the dad at the award ceremony and he's got gangbanger tattoos all over him. My daughter can go two months without repeating an outfit...you'd think that meant we had lots of money, but we don't.
When I was a kid, my mom didn't care at all about clothes. We wore whatever she had found at a garage sale for a quarter, no matter how old, faded, stretched out, etc it was. Our shoes always had holes. She was on a big water-saving kick so we only got to shower once every two weeks. I didn't have any friends and I know a big part of that was because of my sloppy, dirty appearance. I got a job the day I turned 16 and started buying my own clothes so I could at least look like a normal person and buy my shoes new. It was a great feeling to have nice things for once. Of course, by then there was no chance of friendship with the people I'd gone to school with, but once I was out of school, things got better.
I don't deliberately expose my kids to dangerous things either but I'm smart enough to know they will eventually see those things and need to be aware that the whole world is not like our home is.
When I was in school some of the best dressed kids were preachers kids, cheerleaders, athletes. This was not any indication of their moral attitude. It was just an indication of how much money their parents had and how much they wanted to look "good". One preachers kid was arrested for attempted rape in college. Several girls in high school had been his victims but nobody spoke out because, after all....he was the baptist preachers son.
The head cheerleader graduated 6 months pregnant. She is now on her 4th marriage and her first child was a DeadHead who died of a drug overdose.
The kid whose father drove a bread truck and who dressed rather poorly was a war hero who has a string of businesses now.
Looking nice is not exactly the best indicator of moral compass.
My kids were around all types and somehow got through it all because of what they were taught at home and because they did not go into adult life naive about how other people lived. I'm trying to do the same for the 2 still at home.
My kids grew up in an area where a typical street could have a gangbanger, donut shop owner, truck driver, recording executive, school teacher, trust fund baby, scientist from Cal Tech, stay at home dad, and a TV reporter. Southern California. That's how it is: neighborhoods with a mix with all kinds of people. Buddhists, Catholics, Pagans, Mormons. Blacks, Whites, Chicanos. Gays and straights. So, yep, they were exposed to all types of people and families. Today they are comfortable talking with the guy who did time and the woman who flies to Paris for dress fittings. I'm proud of that. They are just fine, BTW. Because we talked with them about the people and things that were a part of their everyday lives.
NOT exposing them to all sorts of people meant they'd have stayed in the basement until they hit 21. And we had a house built on a cement slab so that wasn't happening.
When my daughter was in kindergarten she came home telling me that her friend's dad was "silly" because he liked to dress in women's clothes and dance. I also met the mom once at a school function and my first thought was that she was high. I never did find out exactly what was going on with them, but I never would have let her go to that little girl's house for a playdate. If that's keeping her away from a bad influence, then yes, I've done that.
As she's gotten older though (14, now), I of course have less influence over her decisions regarding friends, so I just try to keep having open conversations about drinking, drugs, sex, etc. Still, if she wanted to go to a kid's house who I've never heard of, I would be very cautious. I'd probably let her go, but I'd pick her up and drop her off and I probably wouldn't let her spend the night. Kids have to learn to make decisions for themselves and also have to learn how to extricate themselves from tricky situations, but I think she still needs help learning how to do that.
I stopped trying to pick my sons' friends once they began elementary school. Some of those friends had home lives very different from ours, but those kids had enough to deal with in life, without adults sitting in judgment of their parents' choices. As long as they behaved in my presence, they were welcome at my home.
One son's best friend in middle school was a neighbor. We saw his parents socially on a regular basis. They had a great deal of money, and spent it freely. We had no reason to keep this boy away, even though he was tossed out of two private schools for behavioral issues. When he was at our house, he was polite, helpful and charming, a real-life Eddie Haskell. But, I wasn't really surprised the day somebody sent me his mug shot. I knew he would try to go through life coasting, his parents never stopped bailing him out of messes. He was charged with 7 felonies for drug dealing, and got one year of home confinement. His parent's SES paid for the best lawyer.
Youngest boy had a friend who was arrested for possession of pot. I still didn't ask him not to see this kid anymore, but I did ask him never to get in a car with him. The risk of teenage boys being pulled over is high, and I didn't want my son put in the position of being present during a search that likely would have turned up evidence of pot use. This boy dropped out of school, and is working in a restaurant. My son is in college and doing very well.
Neither of these other boys are around now, but the point is, my kids navigated the minefield of bad influences all on their own, and I know I can trust their judgment today. Rather than insulating them from questionable outside influence, I made sure they were capable of dealing with it on their own. I can sleep easily at night confident I won't get a call for bail money.
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