Parents and society at-large are increasingly forcing children to view the world through the lens of sex and gender well before their brains and emotions have developed the slightest hint of ability to understand complexity… Take your toddler to story time with a drag queen – very progressive. Watch Disney princess movies day after day with your 4 year old son and then play dress up – that won’t be confusing at all. Intentionally take your children to places where alternative lifestyles are being expressed – what else is a progressive parent to do? Soon-to-be parents expressing their desire for their child to be gay – that’ll score points. Celebrate the 8 year old trans-gendered child, or pump your kid full of hormones before they have even written their first essay – that’ll set your apart from the rednecks. Buy your 10 year old daughter short-shorts – that’s empowering. Gloss over that your 11 year old boy is viewing hardcore pornography – chalk that up to natural curiosity.
“I don’t really believe that teens should have sex, since they are not yet able to process the complex emotions that arise.” -my Mom.
The hallmark of narcissistic parenting is viewing a child as an extension of oneself (the parent) and not as an individual. M. Scott Peck said that love is, “the willingness to extend oneself for the spiritual (personal) growth of another.” How is turning our children in to teens as jaded as a 30 year-old for them? The pornification of our culture is now widely recognized; from teen pop-tarts and talentless sex-tape celebrities –to- more than a quarter of the internet searches and sexed up images on social media feeds. Children are awash in sexual imagery and messages. Many of today’s parents, instead of respecting or protecting the innocence of youth, feel that holding their child’s hand and dragging them even further into the abyss is virtuous and progressive. What a child needs is empathetic care, not to be compelled to mirror are parent’s ideology to score social brownie-points. This is abuse; covert and confusing.
Childhood is not what was a generation or two ago. Older parents having fewer children often with hyper-focused attention, structured play, the savagery of daily daycare, and the push to conform to what may be the last breaths of a decadent and dying culture. Before these children are even born they are shackled by their grandparent’s debt, rot and decay of a once great civilization too concerned with identity and oppression to notice the waste they have laid. But at least these children will be preoccupied with sex and overly concerned with superficial differences.
Identity politics may increase acceptance by force, but also segregation. As identity becomes more specified and highlighted, smaller groups are formed with grievances against the others. The possibility to create ever smaller groups is almost unlimited. History shows repeatedly that as a culture or civilization become preoccupied with loosening restrictions on sex and gender, so too is the hastening of its demise. While these things are sold as progressive and empowering, those who have walked these paths before, show it is exactly the opposite.
“Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.”
The job of the parent is to ready a child to function and be as healthy as possible in the real world. 300,000 years of evolution and the knowledge acquired can point us to the truth and closer to reality. Working backward from an idealized utopian vision sold through rhetoric with potentially dubious intent is fantasy. In a broader sense, child abuse is being normalized. Happy, healthy relationships, a purpose and meaning outside of self are essential to well being. A culture that promotes navel gazing is sick.
The innocence of youth should be respected, not polluted by grandiose narcissistic visions thrusted upon them by “know-it-alls’” corrupted by their own decadence. This is another issue pushed by post-modern deconstructionist thought; criticize and break that which needs refinement, and ignore what is truly broken. Children do not need to be broken and rebuilt, but the culture that promotes this does.