I’m being swallowed by a boa constrictor
And I don’t like it very much
Ohhhh no, oh no
He swallowed my toe…

? You can find it on YouTube.

Love this song! Thank you. I will be adding to my daughters baby shower play list

In reality, loving a child well—and preparing them for the future—requires setting boundaries and restricting their freedom to make significant choices until they are mature enough to grasp the consequences of those decisions.

Young children, especially, lack the experience, knowledge, and cognitive maturity needed to consistently make choices in their best interest. This is precisely why parents exist: to make thoughtful, informed, experience-based decisions on behalf of their children. Only after a child has developed a “bank” of experiences—guided by loving and responsible parenting—can they begin to make sound decisions for themselves.

It should be obvious that a young child with limited life experience will often make poor choices. As parents, allowing small, inexperienced children to make critical decisions is not just misguided—it is setting them up for failure. This isn’t about trivial choices like picking between strawberry or raspberry yogurt. It’s about significant decisions, such as whether to show affection to family members, like hugging a grandparent who may not be around much longer. Such decisions are too weighty for a child to make independently. These are moments where a responsible parent must step in and guide their child.

Also, consider for a moment the perspective of an observer. When a child routinely refuses physical contact with family members, it can project unintended and problematic assumptions about the family. People might wonder, “Why do the parents allow this? Do they think the family is unsafe?” or, “Why is the youngest, least experienced member of the family making significant social decisions?” These are both valid questions.

Of course, it’s the parent’s responsibility to recognize and address any inappropriate behavior from family members. But this, too, requires discernment and action from the parent, not the child. Young children simply don’t have the insight to navigate such complexities. We must remember that young children often find perfectly normal, healthy things “yucky” or unpleasant. If we give a four-year-old’s reluctance to hug Uncle Steve the same weight as their refusal to eat vegetables, clean up after themselves, brush their teeth, etc., we quickly see the absurdity of this approach.

I understand—and even sympathize with—those who find it rude when children refuse physical contact with family members. But I don’t blame the child. I blame the parenting decisions that, though well-meaning, conflate love with granting autonomy before the child is ready for it. Freedom of choice without the foundation of experience and maturity will rarely yield positive results for a child.

I am alarmed, though not surprised, by the number of parents who advocate such methods. It will be interesting to see the fruit of such methods in when these children reach adulthood.

This is truly insightful. Thank you for sharing.

I still remember going to the hospital..

My opinion about foul language/swearing/whatever you want to call it has ebbed and flowed throughout the years. A fairly consistent aspect has been about how people are too fixated on whether you use a particular word, not to mention context (the same word has a rude meaning and a not-rude meaning – e.g. bloody), or the whole “Scunthorpe” principle, that they lose perspective of the purpose.

You can say the worst things about a person and assassinate their character without uttering any of the words from the “bad list”. And a simple yelp in the moment if you bang your elbow or something is not going to reflect badly towards anyone. In a way, that whole hullabaloo will only highlight how uppity someone is about an asinine concept.