Posted by
Justamere10 on Wednesday, April 01, 2009 12:03:33 PM
“Bad Parenting”
The “bail outs” and “rescue plans” we see springing up and expanding every day remind me of bad parenting. It's like mom and dad have a kid who keeps screwing up, and they keep bailing him out, getting him off the hook, paying for his mistakes.
The boy is acting irresponsibly, but the parents are not willing to let him suffer the consequences. “We can't let him fail” they say, “if he goes down it will affect our whole family. He just needs a little boost and he will start doing the right thing.”
But he doesn't, in fact he takes what they give him and uses it to get further into trouble, and for even more selfish pursuits.
The other kids in the family, the responsible ones, resent what is happening, realizing that they are essentially paying for their brother's mistakes and that he is pulling them down with him.
Bad Parental Example
And once we start using the family metaphor, with the bail-out parents representing the government, we have to look at the example those parents are setting for the kids. They are spending irresponsibly. They want to be popular with their kids so they are buying them all kinds of “earmarks.” They are borrowing like crazy and getting further and further into debt. No example of delayed gratification or of saving or of surplus. They keep buying things they can't afford and taking on more projects and obligations than they can handle.
These parents are piling up debts they will never be able to pay. Their kids will inherit them.
When things start going badly, instead of hunkering down and trying to get along with less or to start saving a little, they just borrow more and spend more, saying “We've just got to jump start this family and spend ourselves back to how happy and rich and over the top we used to be!”
(continues at the link below)