Dr. Spock and the Sweathogs
If you are concerned about the permissiveness, the lack of personal responsibility and the probable cause of ‘road rage’ in today’s society, I lay the blame on the doorstep of Dr. Benjamin Spock.
Dr Spock came upon the scene with the best-selling book of all time other than the Bible, “The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care”, in 1946.
This book became very popular in the 1960’s and in it he suggested that parents treat their children as individuals. His advice was contrary to how most parents raised their children throughout prior history but ‘progressive’ mothers jumped on the advice.
The book went through 7 editions, was published in 39 languages and sold over 50 million copies.
Mothers decided to stop disciplining their children and instead allowed them to ‘express themselves’. I’m certain that most of you who remember back that far saw the personal expression of screaming kids throwing groceries out of the shopping carts and dumping gum and candy out of the boxes at the sides of check-out lines.
Then, as a continuation of the system of self-expression, “Welcome Back Kotter” appeared on TV in 1975 and every teenage boy wanted to be Vinnie Barbarino. This characterization of how best to disrupt the American education system propelled John Travolta into stardom.
Interestingly, no one wanted to be Arnold Horshack.
In the series, Gabe Kaplan, as the teacher, was unable to control the group of students, The Sweathogs, who were determined not to be taught.
It was during this period that I personally experienced the results of the program when I was a substitute teacher. It took more effort to control the class than to present the subject matter. Kids learned a lot from “Welcome Back Kotter” and classrooms would never be the same.
Not long after that, in 1979, “The Dukes of Hazzard” appeared on TV. That was the period when my son started driving and a number of his friends died trying to duplicate the stunts as seen on the series. My son wrecked a couple of cars during that series but fortunately survived.
Today those children who were allowed to “express themselves”, who always got their way, are now on the highways. They still expect “their way” and if you happen to be in their way, they will attempt to push you aside. If the other person has always gotten his or her way, watch out, someone’s going to get hurt.
My conclusion: modern media is extremely powerful in influencing our lives—whether it is the written word or the visual presentation of TV programs or video games that kids play today.
I think this article is pretty right on. The only thing I would add is that today’s media can only be as powerful as the parents allow it to be. Unfortunately, in today’s world, the greed for money has over-shadowed the desire to raise healthy, stable children, so what ends up happening is a child will have two working parents that don’t have time for anything and anyone any more. So what is a kid to do? Watch TV, play video games and be raised by other kids.
If you would like a very different but interesting perspective on this idea of raising children in the 21 century, please read an article that I wrote about understanding our teens behavior. Have a good day and thanks for the support.
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article pock and the Sweathogs, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.