Website owner:  James Miller

Generalizations, extremes, raising children

   People so often generalize when they talk or think, so often 
   paint a picture as either black or white, so often go to 
   extremes.  For example, among some people who don't believe in 
   disciplining their children, who are adherents of the modern, 
   liberal child raising philosophies, there seems to exist the 
   assumption that there are only two alternatives as to methods 
   for raising children:  1. strictness, severity, rules and 
   discipline (devoid of any love, kindness or concern)  2. love 
   (no discipline or rules).  In actual fact the only healthy way 
   to raise children lies somewhere between these two extremes --- 
   it combines them in a proper and healthy balance;  it consists 
   of rules and discipline softened by love and understanding; it 
   consists of moral standards, rules and discipline against a 
   general background of understanding, patience, warmth and 
   concern. 
   
   So very often simple common sense and good judgment are the 
   very best guides one can have in living life --- and it is they 
   that so often show the wisdom of balance and the folly of 
   extremes.  And so very often intellectual publications and 
   arguments lead people astray;  and so also do complicated 
   theological arguments, dogma and doctrine --- as well as too 
   much personal philosophizing, generalizing, and abstract 
   thinking.  So often people become deluded and side-tracked by 
   specious abstract intellectual arguments;  they get entangled 
   and lost in these abstract theories and ideas and get way out 
   of the path dictated by simple good sense and good judgment 
   (and invariably they suffer for it, too).  


   Nov 1976