Spoiled, misbehaving, demanding children

Most of us know that if you don’t discipline a child, if you allow her to do and get whatever she wants, you’ll have a selfish, misbehaving, spoiled brat on your hands. Think Veruca Salt from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. “I want an Oompa Loompa NOW!” Why is that? It’s because our nature is to be selfish, and if there are no constraints on our nature, we will freely express and feed it.

Of course, we assume that once a child reaches adulthood no discipline is needed. But that’s only true if the child has learned to discipline herself and that constraints remain, because even in adulthood without them we are prone to slip back into selfishness.

We’re “raising” a lot of spoiled, childish adults today because we’ve removed or greatly weakened constraints. Some of those have been legal ones. Before Roe v. Wade the Democratic Party wouldn’t have dared support abortion rights. Now it’s an important part of their platform and many are insisting that you can’t be a Democrat if you don’t support “a woman’s right to choose.” For most women, abortion is a choice made purely for self-interest…bearing a child is just not what they want.

Homosexuality, though practiced by some since Old Testament times, until recently was generally considered a perversion not to be encouraged. Now homosexuals are a privileged class, same-sex marriage is legal, and not only is homosexuality a suitable option for all but so is deciding what gender you are. Because it’s all about me and my desires and what will make my life all I want it to be.

Pornography is now largely unconstrained, no longer an immoral activity to be hidden. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry represented on the New York Stock Exchange and being viewed by third-graders. If it makes you feel good and nobody’s getting hurt (so they say), why not?

Sexual gratification is about the most selfish of motivators, and you’ll notice it’s what drives all three of the above examples of behavior encouraged by loosened constraints. Including abortion because women want to be able to engage in sex for their own satisfaction and damn the child they don’t want but know may result from the act. Throwing a newborn out a fourth-story window is still frowned on, but only because abortion-rights supporters are still drawing the line for personhood at birth.

But that could change. If we remove the legalities now restraining infanticide, which is supported by some like Princeton bioethics professor Peter Singer, would that make it right? Most would say no. But why not? It’s because we recognize an innate constraint that supersedes any legal one. But what if we lose this one? It’s already been greatly weakened, which is why we have the bad being called good.

God is the only foundation for the objective morality our conscience informs us of. If we consign him to private devotion and deny his relevance in public matters, we cut our legs out from under us and all our opinions on moral issues will not support us when we disagree.

Removing the constraints that a loving Father has put in place for our good has us looking more and more like a society of spoiled, overgrown children. We’re demanding our own selfish way, throwing temper tantrums on college campuses when we don’t like what’s being served, lying whenever it suits us or our political party, and bullying those who call for restoring the constraints. Funny how the children are in favor of discipline if it means disciplining the adults to accept and celebrate all their errant ways.

And interesting how they are now promoting the “glories” of socialism. Could it be they subconsciously recognize that they need to be controlled?