Most people know of Babe Ruth as the Homerun King but don’t realize that Ruth struck out 1,330 times in his career; he gave it his all on every swing, but sometimes it just didn’t work out.
Ruth failed at bat more times than he succeeded, but that didn’t seem to bother him.
Recently, I watched several documentary clips with noted psychologist and author Jordan Peterson where he discussed the dos and don’ts of parenting. Now, my days of having a minor child in my home are over, but I still found Peterson’s observations to be spot on.
According to Peterson, the parents of today overprotect their children to the point that the child grows up totally unprepared to face the world as an adult.
Now, what Peterson was referring to was not the parents of the Baby Boomer generation, many of which saved up money all year or put things on layaway (remember that?) so that their kids could have an extravagant Christmas.
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The parents of Baby Boomers knew what it was like to eat boiled pears and potatoes, live in a home with no electricity or plumbing, possibly go to work in a factory or on the farm at age nine, and they had to fight a devastating world war; naturally, they wanted to raise their kids in a much better environment than they had.
Boomer baby parents saved up the money to buy their kid a Schwinn; they would let their kid tool around for a while on training wheels and then they took off the training wheels, standing by with a bottle of Neosporin when the inevitable occurred.
No, Peterson was talking about the recent generations of parents who won’t let their kids leave the house without a helmet, knee pads and a bubble suit for protection.
According to Peterson, one major reason why some 30 year-olds are living in their parents’ basement is because the parents never let their kid fail and then learn the lessons that failure teaches.
Teachers complain to parents that the kid is not “focused” in school and suggest the kid be screened for ADHD and that almost always ends with the kid being placed on medication such as Ritalin.
Sure, the grades immediately improve, but after decades of doctors prescribing the drugs, we are only now seeing the long term effects of drugging children into conformity with a standard that is against nature.
A 2002 study published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology found a disturbing link between Ritalin use in childhood and cocaine abuse in adulthood.
I recall the first time a doctor suggested Ritalin for my child. He told me that it was no different from allowing her a cup of coffee in the morning. My response was, “Then I will give her coffee.”
In my opinion, ALL normal children have ADHD. As all of us as children grow, we are constantly bombarded with stimuli, and part of the growth process is to eventually focus on one task and ignore the other stimuli; but like potty training, it is a long process, and there are accidents along the way.
It is abnormal to me that parents, teachers and even doctors have come to believe that kids who have only within the last few years learned to wipe their own bottoms can properly and stoically sit behind a desk in a classroom and focus on multiplication tables and grammar for six hours and not get bored…especially when there is a squirrel right outside the classroom window.
“Johnny can’t fail his third-grade reading class! If he does, he’ll never get enough points to enter college prep courses in high school!”
Parents today fret if their kid doesn’t achieve anything but success growing up with the proper protection and prevention of anything that may destroy their kid’s self-esteem, then they have failed as parents.
In contrast, my parents let me fail.
I was in 10th grade when Ms. Charlotte Smith, my science teacher, called my mother to let her know that I slept through her physical science course every day and that she was going to be forced to give me an F in the class.
Mother’s response was, “Let him sleep, don’t wake him up. If he fails, he fails.”
When I got home, my mother told me that if I failed Ms. Smith’s class she would have the mag wheels she bought me for Christmas taken off my car and replaced with the original ugly hubcap-less-white-wall tires. Her rationale was that she stipulated that the wheels only stayed on the car if I was making passing grades. It was her house, and she made the rules.
If I failed science or any other subject, I had to deal with the consequences.
No! She couldn’t take away my mags! The girls loved my ‘78 cherry red Monte Carlo with the growly dual exhaust, rich velour interior and shiny steel wheels!
I would be the laughingstock of Lakeside High if I was forced to drive it around looking like a hooptie.
Guess what? I passed the class, and it wasn’t because Ms. Smith took pity on me. It was me possibly losing my cool factor with the girls that kicked my butt in gear; she gave me the grade I earned and was happy to see me move on to become another teacher’s problem.
It was my decision to drop out of college after only two semesters when I knew I was flunking out, and my mother informed me that since I was 18, and a grown man, if I didn’t stay in school, then I needed to find other lodgings or pay rent.
My parents were never going to let me die of starvation or homelessness and they made that clear, but they still pushed me out of the nest knowing they had given me all of the skills to fly off on my own.
So, I set out on a life that has been one glorious failure after another. Everytime I have failed and scuffed my knees, I have had to get back up on my own, dust myself off and try to learn a lesson from the failure.
Abandoning college, I figured I was going to be a big-time disc jockey in Augusta like Harley Drew. Well, I tried and I failed after popping back and forth on the radio dial. I did not have the spontaneous wit that was needed for a morning show radio host.
Next, I went into acting. My agent, the lovely Evelyn Dysart, was convinced I had “the look;” however, the movie producers didn’t agree on that assessment, and my movie career went nowhere.
I did make some good contacts in the music business, so I tried my luck as a musician. I toured and toured while making demo after demo. I was too poor to afford the rock and roll lifestyle, but I had fun.
In the end, my music wasn’t any better or worse than anything else out there, but it failed to get any record label notice.
I got into hotel marketing and landed a sweet job that took me all over the country, staying in the finest luxury suites. I made great money and lived like a prince. How was I to know the internet would come along and drastically change the hotel industry?
Well, it did, and that became another notch in my failure belt.
Even after going to college and getting my degree, I experienced failure.
As a radio news reporter, I was moderately successful, until radio no longer needed a “man on the street.”
I tried my hand at being a small business owner only to find that I was not skilled in successfully retailing wine. I tried selling cars and, later, selling insurance and had about as much luck as I would have fishing in a chlorinated swimming pool.
Yes, there were some lean times. I once had to sell my prized guitar to give my kid a good Christmas, and I had to take a punch in the ego, going from ‘Scott Hudson of WGAC News’ to serving tables and washing dishes in a restaurant.
However, failure taught me responsibility, and it showed me what I was skilled at and what I was totally not cut out for.
The biggest thing failure taught me was not to be afraid to fail; God has a purpose for all of us, in my opinion, but it is up to us to seek out that purpose.
When the opportunity of The Augusta Press presented itself, I knew exactly where I would fit in within the organization. It took a lifetime of learning, but I knew where my skills could benefit the proposed media company, and I also knew not to take on responsibilities that I was not skilled to handle.
Failure also taught me humility, and I knew I couldn’t just waltz in and act like the rock star reporter; but rather, I had to be the guy to help mentor the next generation of reporters and quietly set the benchmark without being anyone’s boss.
The Augusta Press has now, in three short years, become an Augusta institution with a wall filled with awards, and I could not be more proud of our wonderful staff; but I am also proud of myself. A lifetime of failure led to me becoming part of something really special or “ginormous” as we would have called it in the ’80s.
Let your kids fail. When it happens, pick them up, wipe off their tears, grab an anti-bacterial wipe if needed, and tell them to shake it off and get back on that banana seat; you will be doing them, and society, a favor.
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter and Editorial Page Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
