RE: In Defense of "Permissive" Parenting; Children are Human Too

I agree that being too authoritative or too neglectful in parenting are bad things for the children, and I also believe children are people with the same rights as adults. I helped raise three step-children, ages 8 to 12 when I joined the family, and we always leaned toward permissiveness. The kids had a lot of freedom, but there were a few clearly defined and agreed-upon boundaries. We had family meetings to determine those boundaries among us. Now that I'm adopting a child of my own, who I can be a parent to from the start, it will be interesting to see how my parenting philosophy evolves, from both past experience and accrued wisdom. I hope it will be even better this time....and we did a pretty good job with my step-kids.

As a child, my parents had completely opposing parenting philosophies. My dad was very authoritarian....he was fond of saying the household wasn't a democracy, it was a dictatorship with him in charge. My mom, on the other hand, always told us we could do whatever we wanted to do, as long as we could figure out a way to do it. She encouraged us to make things happen for ourselves, and always supported us in whatever we wanted to do. If there was something we wanted to do that my dad was against, she'd let us do it behind his back, and argue with him in private about it later (we never heard my parents yelling at each other or us). An example is when I was 11 and wanted to get my ears pierced....my dad was against it, and my mom sent me to the mall with my great-aunt one weekend to have it done. My dad never said anything to me, but I'm sure he and my mom had words about it between them.

Guess which parent I'm by FAR closer to today. I talk to my dad maybe three or four times a year, and see him maybe two or three times a year. I talk to my mom on the phone every day, and see her about once a week. Her parenting style was definitely the preferable one. Even my brother, who is closer to my dad than me, spends more time with my mom. She always treated us like we were fully realized human beings, even before we started school. She gave us respect, and we gave it to her in return.