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"American parents have totally abdicated the job of parenting and have raised the white flag when it comes to disciplining their children or teaching them virtues like honesty, hard work, and self-respect. Americans have explicitly handed off character education to schoolteachers. Such a practice says a great deal about our nation’s expectations of its parents."

I agree with that, but I’ll submit that the schools are partially to blame, taking “en loco parentis” to mean “we’ll do it all so you don’t have to worry about it” and frankly, that’s their own fault.

When you constantly act like parents, you absolve parents from being parents. When you make decisions about nutrition, medical treatment, and so on, you’re acting as parents.

Go back to teaching what’s in the textbooks and you’ll see parents filling in the gaps they way they did when we were children.

The Exhaustion of the American Teacher

14 October 2012 ·