this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2024

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Unpopular Opinion

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"Stuff school should have taught me" material is actually stuff your parents should have taught you. (self.unpopularopinion)

submitted 3 months ago by the_toast_is_gone to c/unpopularopinion

93 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Schools shouldn't be treated as these magical places where you're put in at some age and over a decade later you emerge a complete human being. You have parents and you spend more time at home than at school for a reason: you're supposed to learn from your parents.

A school can potentially give you a degree of financial literacy instruction. Your parents should be the ones paying your allowance money and driving you to the bank to get your first checking account. A school can teach you how to cook something. Your parents should be the ones eating your food and helping you cook it better. A school can show you some level of DIY. Your parents should directly benefit from teaching you how to fix the sink when it gets clogged. A school can tell you what kinds of careers exist. Your parents should love you enough to tell you that either your career ambitions or your financial expectations need to change. A school can tell you how to build a resume. Your parents should be the ones driving you to your job interview and to your job until you buy your first car. A school can give you a failing grade when you do poorly on a test. Your parents should be able to make you face the real, in-the-moment consequences of doing something wrong.

Expecting a school, public or private, to teach you everything you need to know is a grave mistake. You need people in your corner who are taking an active part in raising you all the way to adulthood and beyond. If you have kids yourself, that goes for them as well. If you aren't there for your children, to teach them the things that schools don't teach because they can't mass produce the lessons to nearly the same quality that you can give them, they'll blame you and the school for having failed them. And they'd be right to lay the blame at your feet.

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[–] Valmond 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yeah like I'll call out politicians, not about what schools teach and don't, but what my parents teach and don't?

Of course you'll get less "my parents should have taught me this" than "school should've taught me this". Your logic is quite biased.

Also if there are so many "sloths" etc that becomes parents, then it completely undermines your argument because schools should then teach what those parents aren't.

[–] the_toast_is_gone -5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

How is it biased to call out people who don't raise their children right? I probably should have mentioned the role that extended family can and should play in raising a child, but still. They can pick up the slack; we shouldn't expect schools to have to do so. We as a society should stop accepting that families will just throw their kids in an institution, leave it at that, and hope for the best.

Schools should be very defined in what they teach people. Parents, or more broadly, families, know the kids best and how they learn. They should be able to give the kids a much more individualized education on the wisdom aspects of life. If we broaden the scope of schools to include pretty much everything children need to know, then we'd be better off shipping off our kids to boarding schools and washing our hands of the whole parenting problem.

[–] Valmond 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Dude thinks everyone has parents like him, elaborates that no learning of vital information in school is necessary if he himself got the knowledge from his parents.

There, I put the discussion back on track.

[–] the_toast_is_gone -2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Actually, I don't want everyone to have parents like me. My parents divorced when I was too young to remember why and neither has explained why it happened. I want parents to actually teach their children how to live healthy lives. School has its place, but if you want school to teach children everything, then you might as well send them to boarding schools the minute they can string together coherent sentences.

[–] AWistfulNihilist 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Oooooohh, you've idealized a system that you've never experienced because you had shitty parents.

Yes, it would be nice if everyone's parents were responsible and prepared, it would be nice if everyone had an extended family around them. I think everyone agrees with that.

The reality of the situation is PARENTS most often lack the training and resources to raise a kid. Parents lack the support of family, both parents are likely to be to work to afford their family.

The system you want doesn't exist because nearly every member of our current system is engaged in capitalism, including the people taking care of the children for money, AKA daycares.

I see what you want, even if you don't realize it, I wish I had good parents too, I hated school, but at least there were examples of good people there to show me how to live a non degenerate life, unlike my parents.

[–] the_toast_is_gone 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Oh, I know I want good parents. That much is painfully obvious. If my worst problem was that I was bored with my life, that would be great.

But again, where does it end? We need to draw the line somewhere and start holding people accountable for how they raise their kids. We need families to unite and provide for children however they can, even if that just means grandma watches them play when they're home. Any little bit helps. We're so atomized in America that maintaining a healthy family structure, much less raising children effectively, is difficult. The end result is that teachers are struggling to keep up and becoming burnt out. It would be better for everyone if people could just teach their children non-academic stuff instead of expecting someone else to do it for them.

[–] AWistfulNihilist 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

You want to hold people accountable for having all of their time that they should be spending with their children, mandatory for living?

You are angry with a system that only awards time to the wealthy, you've put the onus in the hands of the exploited.

You want a better experience for children, start with supporting parents, not imagining ways to punish them.

[–] the_toast_is_gone -1 points 3 months ago

Socially responsible, not criminally responsible. If I'm a parent and my kids are hanging out with another family, and I find out that my kid keeps getting smacked around by the other family's kids, then I'm not gonna bring my kid over to that family any longer. Sucks to be them. Same deal here. If we start discouraging people from atomizing into the smallest possible family units so they can spend more time together, it'll reduce demand for real estate, power consumption, all sorts of things. It's how we've lived for centuries, fleeing your state the minute you turn 18 isn't something that was done much until recently.

Mostly I'm just annoyed at books that are inaccurately titled and people who expect schools to teach children absolutely everything.

I do want a better experience for children, and I will gladly support them. This is partly a cost of living problem, but just as much a problem is people tuning out and deciding not to raise their kids any longer; you can see this from the entire genre of videos online where teachers talk about how Gen Alpha is barely literate, if that.