Week 6, Post 1

     I didn't want to spend all my time on the same topic as the discussion, but there was something that really clicked while I was reading about the parenting styles. Up until about a year ago I was very close friends with someone who I had known since first grade. All throughout my life I had spent time with his family and at his home, and while his parents always considered me part of their family, I could not bring myself to feel the same way towards them. When I was younger, I didn't really realize why, and just wrote it off. However, as I got slightly older, I realized why. Upon coming to college with him here, I noticed that, removed from his parents, he was a very unpleasant and immature individual... a set of traits I can trace back to his parents fairly well.
     Looking back, I remember always being taken aback by the way his parents would discipline him, or even the lack of respect they showed him. One particular memory stands out: when we were younger, I was at his house, his mother left work and called him, asking him to prepare dinner for everyone by the time she got home. When she returned from work, he had not yet been able to finish dinner, so she asked him "what's your favorite restaurant?" He told her, and she replied "good. Your father, your brother and I are going there. You can stay here." Even in my youth, I was surprised by A.) the cruelty of how she handled it and B.) the fact that she would embarrass him like that in front of a guest. Later on I understood that embarrassment was their primary form of discipline.
     This overbearing, authoritarian style of parenting that they imposed on him first became a detriment, that I noticed, in middle school. His grades dropped and he became a little bit reclusive; to which they responded, rather then trying to help him, by embarrassing him until they scared his grades up. No one, anywhere, at middle school age, should have to have friends over while a sign hangs on their fridge that reads "6 points away from a spanking from daddy". It was borderline abusive, and it seriously disturbed me. So much so that I distanced myself from the family until years later, but by that point he was already who he was. He had grown up, apparently molded, into a narcissistic, controlling, nervous wreck with frequent delusions of grandeur and even more frequent night terrors. Having seen it happen first hand, I can at least say that I will never fall into a authoritarian style of parenting, at least not anywhere near this degree.