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Home > Blogs > Adventures in Motherhood > Archives > 2009 > August > 20 > Entry
Rosemond’s about-face surprising, maddening
Did anyone else read the John Rosemond column from earlier this week?
If you did, maybe you were as surprised as I was to find him completely go against his own teachings when dealing with his grandkids.
Just for reference, I was never a Rosemond follower, but I sometimes have liked to hear his old-school, no-nonsense point of view.
Sometimes I could see some truth in it, and I could at least appreciate it for its consistency.
That is no longer the case.
Rosemond, who is as known for his extremely strict discipline ideas as he is for his disdain for overwhelmed parents who don’t follow the same rigid guidelines, appears to have (in his own words) had an “epiphany.”
While he and his wife were baby-sitting two of their grandchildren, he let them pick a movie and then (gasp!) not sit down and watch it, served them a decadent breakfast, ignored their bad behavior and quickly ran to the store when they didn’t have the kids’ preferred choice of ice cream.
Now, I realize there is a difference between how you treat your grandchildren and your children, and for that I will give him leeway.
But, what I couldn’t get over was when he said, “I suddenly understood, completely, why divorced fathers turn into ‘Disneyland Dads’ on the relatively infrequent occasions they get to be with their kids. …
“It’s quite simple: When one is only able to spend one-on-one time with his or her children or grandchildren every so often, one wants to create nothing but positive memories.”
He “suddenly understood”? Has he not been hearing these same pleas from parents for decades?
I give him credit for admitting that he had gone soft, saying that “an alien had taken over my brain,” and questioning his own motives as the well-known “draconian parenting expert.”
However, his admission showed that he could not understand this perspective until he had experienced it himself — and that just made me mad.
And it made me hope that all the well-meaning parents he had belittled over the years were reading it as well, if he hadn’t scared them off long ago.
It also made me question how “expert” he could be with that lack of objectivity.
At any rate, I do hope he continues to have fun with his grandkids — good for them and good for him.
But, even more than that, if he does continue to give out parental advice, I hope he will take it a little easier on struggling parents in the future.
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Comments
By Caroline
August 20, 2009 2:07 PM | Link to this
I agree, Jill. Now he’s not only self-important, but also a hypocrite. I found his wife’s demand for their grandkid to finish his orange juice to be particularly ridiculous. Parents write to him asking for help with very specific cases, and rather than simply answer their questions, he, as you said, belittles them and delivers some long-winded lecture. When a spouse who was cheated on writes to Dear Abby, she doesn’t start off with, “Adultery is so much more pervasive today. Spouses need to realize when they say ‘I do,’ they’re in it for the long haul…” and so forth. She gives them what they asked for, and that alone: her advice. Finding Rosemond’s answer among all the “draconian” mantras is like a scavenger hunt!
By amy
August 20, 2009 11:46 AM | Link to this
I used to read his columns and thought “this guy doesn’t have kids” because I’d sure like to see him practice what he preaches and see how it turns out.