Friday Food for Thought: 10 Signs You Are a Bad Parent

If your own life is an example of what you don’t want your child to grow up and become, you are a bad parent.

~ Larry Winget

I often draw parallels between financial health, and health in many other areas of life. I’ve compared the noise from the media to empty calories. I’ve compared debt to an alcohol hangover. I’ve written about how good financial habits are like eating your veggies.

I think food is a lot like money. The problems we have with money, like the problems we have with food, are largely math problems. You cannot consistently consume more calories than you burn and expect to be healthy. You will become overweight and you will eventually experience some of the health problems that go along with that: fatigue, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc..

Likewise, you cannot consistently spend more money than you earn. You will go into debt. You will eventually experience the problems that go along with that: stress, guilt, insecurity, inability to care for your loved ones and meet your responsibilities, etc..

Food and money, like lots of other good things in life, need to be enjoyed in moderation. When things get out of balance, they tend to go awry. This post is about a different kind of food: food for thought.

In the spirit of balance, I’m going to try to write an occasional post that provides (I hope) the opposite of the “empty calorie” noise I addressed above. I’m going to call it Friday Food for Thought. It won’t be every Friday, but I’ll try to stick to Fridays to post them or the name just wouldn’t make sense anymore!

Each post will highlight an article or group of articles that made me think. It doesn’t matter whether I agree with it or not. I just like things that make me think. I hope you’ll find these posts useful and thought-provoking – sort of like fruits and veggies for your brain!

Today’s article comes to us from Larry Winget, so you know you’re either going to love it or hate it. I came across it when I found Larry’s blog as a result of last Friday’s review of You’re Broke Because You Want to Be. Larry, or someone from his office, was kind enough to link to my review from his website and I found my way to his blog from there. The article is provocatively entitled Ten Signs You Are a Bad Parent.

Like anyone who puts an opinion out there, Larry drew lots of different responses from readers. I was actually afraid to read the article in case I fit into the bad parent category. I thought most of his reasons were pretty valid, although if you’re going to get picky, you can always find exceptions and loopholes.

I actually found the article kind of reassuring. We have been considered, by our kids and others, to be pretty strict parents. But I found many of the areas where we’ve put our foot down on the list. I’m really glad we stuck to our guns on the “no T.V. in the bedroom” thing. That seemed to be quite a point of contention in the comments section, but Larry supported his views with research citing the harmful effects of T.V. in the bedroom.

One area where I think I may not have passed with flying colours is the “no tolerating verbal disrespect” part. I can occasionally be a little too democratic – but I’m trying to improve on that. My kids are too young to be considered mooches yet, so I’ll have to see how I do on that one in the future.

What did you think of the article?