Letting Jackson Park the Car Might Have Been a Bit Much

In an article that could probably be written every 25 years or so, the Mail has determined that today's kids are spoiled.

But the article quotes a guy who notes, "children are now spoilt [spoilt?] in ways that go far beyond materialism." Another expert claims that we parents don't spend as much time with the kids — due to longer working hours, both parents working, and perhaps that our kids can be so fucking annoying we can't be in the same room with them sometimes — as our parents.

I wonder about this as I recall buying Jackson a Lego set for no reason besides the fact that he had a "good week" (which sometimes means he didn't burn down the house), and I think about all the times the kids have worn me down in order to get their way, even though by the time I was 7, I damn well knew that there would be no special gifts on any of those 363 days that weren't my birthday or Christmas, and "no" most certainly meant "NO!"

But by letting Jackson get a box of chocolate milk every time he accompanies me to Starbucks or by his expecting a muffin when we go to Panera to pick up a coffee for his mother, do I risk saddling him with the results of indulgent parenting, claimed by an expert in this article, which includes "child depression, child-on-child murder, underage pregnancy, obesity, violent and antisocial behavior, and pre-teen alcoholism"?

I await the day when my son turns out to be a fat drunk depressed pregnant teen who murders most of his classmates, and I will know that I am to blame.