Jordan Peterson Vs Us Parenting Strategies

Malcolm and Simone contrast their parenting approach with Jordan Peterson's authoritarian tactics. They believe kids should develop internal morals, not obey external authority.

Simone: what you do now with our children is show when their will has crossed a line with your will, whereas Jordan Peterson's strategy is, I am going to let my will rule this household, and you have to bend to my will. Mm, .

Malcolm: Yeah, no, no, no. It makes perfect sense.

Malcolm: And I understand, like, I, I really, I get it like, and I, and again, I'm saying, I actually don't think it's wrong for the type of, of, of families that really crave structure. I think it's incredibly effective.

Malcolm: I want to raise kids where the punishment for unjust action is. is how it makes them feel about themselves, not an external authority applying that punishment because then you enter the real world and you see external authorities not applying punishment for bad action.

Malcolm: You see the zeitgeist in society says, this is what's good, right? Because look at our society right [00:01:00] now, the things that rewards the things that cancels, right? These are all the little kids that were taught to obey authority, you know, and they. They go out into society and they're looking for what's right and what's wrong.

Malcolm: And so they look at what is the authority punishing? What is the authority not punishing? The things the authority doesn't punish, well, those must be the right things. And the thing the authority does punish, those must be the wrong things. Instead of trying to determine those things for themselves and take their own mental weight for that.

Would you like to know more?

Simone: Hi Malcolm. Hello

Malcolm: Simone. So you read this Jordan Peterson book and we've been talking more about various things that we either agree with or don't agree with in it. And one of the areas I really want to focus on is parenting strategy. We touched on it a bit with the eight passengers situation video.

Malcolm: But I, I I

Malcolm: don't have a prescription where I'm not like, this is the right way to do it. I actually think for different. [00:02:00] genetic sociological clusters, which likely are inherited through a family. There are different strategies. So contrast two broad strategies, the Jordan Peterson strategy, right? Which is and we'll go into it, but essentially it's a very controlling strategy that is focused on the adult breaking the child's will.

Malcolm: It's

Simone: about discipline and structure.

Malcolm: Yes. And then the other strategy, which is much closer to the strategy that our family employs and was employed with both of us when we were growing up, I'd called the Rodney Atkins strategy which comes from the, the he's mine song, great country song if you haven't heard it.

Malcolm: But the thesis of what happens in the song is a guy catches a group of teenagers out smoking in a field and is, is, is taking them to his dad, to, to what he thinks is their dad's house, right? One of their dad's house. Cause he saw where they were running. And he's, he's complaining that these kids won't speak when spoken to, and they were getting up to mischief.[00:03:00]

Malcolm: And the dad's like, you know, he's mine. He's really proud of his son for doing all that in a way. And he's like, if you knew me back then it'd be no surprise to you what he's done. And then, you know, other things like the kids that have football game and somebody takes a cheap shot at their little kicker and he.

Malcolm: Punches the kid and he ends up getting removed from the game. And, you know, he's obviously being punished and he's like, talking about how he jumps up in the stadium and shouts, he's mine. And he's all proud of his son for doing this. But it reminds me a lot of parenting strategies that my parents utilized for me to the extent where I really realized, and I think also part of the, he's mine song, it keeps going back to, if you understood what I was like when I was a kid.

Malcolm: You would understand, one, that the same traits that I am nurturing when I'm a kid are what eventually led me to become successful, and what will allow them to become successful, one[00:04:00] but two, that any other reaction to this, you know, again, it is showing that it is potentially an intergenerational genetic thing would obviously be a, a deleterious reaction, and I know this from when I was a kid.

Malcolm: So, Let's go into the, well, okay. So here's an example from my own childhood before we go into the, what Jordan Peterson recommends is I remember I got in trouble once at school with, with one of my teachers I, I don't remember the specifics of it, but it felt very unjust to me at the time.

Malcolm: And so I went to my mom afterwards and I was like, Oh, the teacher said this about what I had done. And she goes, Oh, you don't need to listen to them. And I was like, well, what do you mean? And she goes, well, I mean, she's an elementary school teacher. She's not exactly in adult society, respectable. She's like, if she had great advice on how to live her life, she wouldn't have become an elementary school teacher.

Malcolm: So what you [00:05:00] need to ask yourself is, are you proud of the way you acted? Do you think what you did was right? And if you didn't, then you do need to feel bad. You do need to punish yourself, but you need to understand right from wrong on your own and not have it be what authority figures tell you. I got into so much trouble in school.

Malcolm: I was at the principals like every other day. When I was in school because I was told, oh yeah, teachers are all losers. You could just ignore them. The goal is don't get caught or don't get expelled because that will have a permanent effect on your life. But other than that, I mean, it's up to you what's right and wrong.

Malcolm: And you should learn that for yourself and live by your own moral code. Which is just wildly different. And then you should even take pride in defying authority when authority is unjust. Which is really different. So let's talk about the Jordan Peterson strategy, right? So can you go into this scene from the book?

Simone: Yeah. Jordan Peterson describes a couple of scenes and, and mostly [00:06:00] his, his parenting tactics involved, basically making it clear that he is the alpha of the household. And when he says you have to do something, you have to do it. And if you defy him, he will essentially wait you out. So at one point. He waits for like 30 minutes while a toddler refuses to eat and doesn't let the toddler leave the table and is basically like, you don't get to leave the table until you eat.

Simone: And then when he does eat, he praises him and says, you're a very good boy and, you know, gives him a lot of praise when he does what he wants. And then otherwise it's just like, you don't get to go anywhere. He's like a stone wall. And what he argues in the book is, you know, I can, like, for me, 30 minutes is 30 minutes.

Simone: For a kid, 30 minutes is like... Forever. So you can outlast a kid a lot faster. That's why he says it's sustainable because apparently he's only been around very weak, well children.

Malcolm: No, I can't even imagine. And so I know that even if somebody did that to me when I was a kid, cause I did have a few authority figures try things like that when I was a kid, try thes