Dragged Up, Not Brought Up: A Parent’s Reflection on the State of Parenting Today
Parenting has never been easy. But lately, I’ve started to wonder: have some people just given up entirely? There’s a difference between bringing children up and letting them grow up wild, and right now, it feels like too many kids are being dragged up without discipline, accountability, or even a hint of respect for others. It’s not about being perfect. We all struggle, we all get it wrong sometimes. But when you refuse to even try to do the right thing - when you defend your child’s worst behaviour instead of confronting it - that’s when I worry. Recently, my own son, who has already been through far more than any child should due to early childhood trauma, was attacked. Not by some nameless group of troublemakers - though that would have been bad enough - but by a group of girls. One of them, heartbreakingly, was my own daughter. There’s no hiding from that. No sugarcoating it. As parents, my partner and I have dealt with it. Heavily. Because we will not tolerate bad behaviour,...