The Luv Doc: Obnoxious, Whiny Creatures

Luvdoc,
I love my sister, but I hate her children. They are the most spoiled, obnoxious, whiny creatures on Earth. She never disciplines them, and they get away with murder. The worst part is that they are disrespectful to her and to their grandparents. I won’t put up with it, and she gets mad at me when I try to discipline them. It’s getting to where I don’t want to see her anymore. I know it’s sad, but I don’t want those monsters wrecking my house and driving up my blood pressure. What can I do to get her to start cracking the whip?
– Fed Up

F.U., if there is a hell, you can be fairly certain that it is populated with the tortured, anguished souls of other people’s children. I hope that thought gives you some consolation. Being around children can be an absolute nightmare. In fact, any time I see an adorable little blonde girl staring into a fuzzy TV set, I freak the fuck out – and it’s not necessarily because I’m worried she will grow up and spawn a new Aryan master race.

Needless to say, parenting is tricky business, and the ball gets dropped as often as not. It’s a rare human being who has the love and patience to gently and compassionately guide a child into responsible adulthood. Most people wing it and pray for the best. Oftentimes, "winging it" means decades/centuries/eons of dysfunction passed down from generation to generation, the prevailing wisdom being, generally: “If it was good enough for me, it’s good enough for my kids.” Fortunately, children are resilient, and often bounce back from amazingly adverse circumstances to become decent people. Others manage in spite of all odds to become huge assholes.

Hitler was someone’s child. So was Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Vlad the Impaler, and (lest you think the Asshole Hall of Fame is a total sausage fest) so was Elizabeth Bathory, the famous serial-killing Hungarian countess who used to bathe in the virgin blood of her victims to maintain her youth. Did the parenting ball get dropped, or were they just little ticking time bombs of deranged psychosis, evil, and calamity? It’s hard to know without a lot more research. In the meantime, watch your back. If you think your nieces and nephews are treacherous little bastards now, wait until they grow up and start watching Fox News.

As far as your sister’s disciplinary regime, you’re probably not going to change it by trying to do the job yourself. You should, however, make it very clear to her what behavioral standards you expect from her children if you’re going to be around them. It’s OK if she wants to let them explore the boundaries of acceptable behavior, but it’s not OK to make you part of the experiment.