Exactly, freedom, people should grow and decide their future, they must be free to do so.

I don't care if there is something to gain with it, if whatever happens to his life is not the persons wish and decisions, but his parent's, it is wrong.

Yeah, I understand it's the popular way to think of it. I really wish there were some parents of middle schoolers and high schoolers here who would chime in to this discussion. Judging by the average age of people here (taken from another thread), most of us can probably still remember pushy, controlling parents whom we disagreed with. And we're obviously going to all think we were right (and our stubborn, old-fashioned parents were wrong). Not enough of us are old enough to have experienced bratty preteen and teenage children. It would be nice to hear the other side speak up here though.

I shouted "freedom" partly in mockery, because individual freedom is often used as an excuse to undermine national and cultural sovereignty and self-determination. We support and fund individuals who rebel and generally cause problems for states/nations/cultures we don't like.

I don't really mind most of the time, but now we're talking about undermining familial sovereignty. Isn't that taking it a bit far? Parents having less sovereignty and control over how they want to run their own families?

I don't know about you, but most kids I've known throughout my childhood were stupid and bratty, including myself. If I had all the freedom to grow and decide my own future that I wanted, I wouldn't have went to school. A lot of kids wouldn't. (Maybe the state should be the one to force children to learn, rather than the parents?)

Let's keep things into perspective, the vast majority of the time, parents aren't forcing their children to do dangerous or stupid things like the example of this thread. Most of the time, they are stopping their kids from doing dangerous and stupid things and when they do force their kids to do something it's for their own good.


Those fish were anthropomorphized. The lesson learned at the end is apt.

By your logic, we have nothing to learn from fables. Why do parents bother telling Aesop's fables or other stories to their children? The children obviously won't learn anything, because humans are way more complex than foxes and other animals.

The simplicity of a fable is deliberate. It helps us focus on the moral lesson without distraction and understand its universality.


Also, all kids in the media (even fish) do what they want, not what their parents want. They (individuals!) are always right, and the parents (authority) always wrong. That is the point.

Last edited by N0x_ at 10:52 am, May 14 2011

There's a Bollywood movie, 3 Idiots, on the point you guys are discussing. It's from the children's perspective.

I don't think we can use a general concrete opinion on this point. For every child, rather, for every family, the situation is different. You can't just say that the parents are wrong, or that the children are wrong. If the child is a brat, then the parents are somewhat justified if they try to bring him/her back on the right track and do all they can for him/her. But if the child is not a brat, and the parents are forcing their views upon him/her, that is wrong. Again, these stereotypes can also not be applied to every family. Circumstances matter a lot.

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Great movie.

On the subject matter of the movie... I agree that too much control is not healthy for the personal development of children. Everything should be taken with some moderation.

This is especially obvious to me as I have read various college and job applications as well as interviewed a fair number of Chinese and Indian applicants (living in China/India, not American nationals).

A LOT of them suffer from the same problems:
1. Their cover letters / personal essays simply repeat what's already written in their resumes: their grades, test scores, credentials, etc.
2. They give me an impression of neediness. The company/college they are applying to would be perfect for them. They flatter the company/college too much. They are in awe. They diminish themselves.
3. They wrote in their own native language and paid professional agents/services to translate for them... Some of them outright did not write their own resumes and essays. The agent wrote everything for them. This is surprisingly common and very obvious to many like myself, and easy to verify.

A problem they all shared was that throughout their lives, they mainly followed (society, parents, etc) and rarely lead or felt like leading (making their own decisions). This is not personal opinion. Very little guesswork was needed for this conclusion, I assure you.

I suffered from a similar problem, which is why I think I wasn't able to get into the top engineering school MIT (my first choice). I focused so much effort on GPA and testing, that I ended up being a very uninteresting person. I had nothing really to talk about aside from academic achievements... but you know, everyone applying to MIT at the time had 1500+ SATs and 4.3+ GPAs. I wasn't special. I was too shy and didn't know if I should or how to articulate my long-term goals/dreams. I didn't really express myself.

I'm well aware of and have strong experience with both sides of the argument. I can sympathize with children who grew up mechanically without freeeeedom.



Sure. If nothing conclusive can be reached, then the system we have currently works fine. After all, who should decide whether the parents or child is "wrong"? Circumstances do matter a lot, and that's why these situations can be judged on a case-by-case basis without creating new blanket rules. For the particular case involving a mother's unauthorized use of Botox, we already know the mother is wrong without needing to further control how parents should raise their own children.

...

Do we really want the gov't or plebeian masses to decide for us how to raise children? Sure, it sounds simple now, but reality isn't so black and white as the examples we use to "prove our point", like the main story presented in this thread. The child beauty pageant in the opening story is a red herring. The problem should be unauthorized use of potentially dangerous cosmetic products on young children. In reality, there will be far more gray situations.

First off, none of you even know how the kids feel about child beauty pageants. For all we know, they don't care, or they even enjoy it.

Second, how about child talent shows? I walked through a child dance competition occurring at a university I was visiting lately, and all of the children had heavy makeup. A lot of us in this thread have expressed shock at the chiIdren in the pics and how gaudily they are dressed up, but I think we aren't aware or are forgetting that theatre makeup is different from everyday makeup or the makeup used for filming or photography. It's very glaring, gaudy, and exaggerated. It has to be because people are mostly sitting far from the stage in the theater. They can't zoom in. It very often looks ugly and scary when photographed, especially when using flash photography. If I blissfully ignore that, sure I can complain loudly that "Children should never look like that! It's disgusting! They don't belong in dance competitions. They should be playing in the mud with friends... freedom from parental authority!"

So what is the difference? Now, I don't have a problem with parents who encourage or put their children in performing arts. I am somewhat weirded out by parents who put their children through child beauty pageants. Why is that? I don't understand myself. If I have a logical, objective, conclusive reason for why child beauty pageants are definitely more destructive and harmful to children, then perhaps I could agree with most of the people here.

Instead, I don't think I'll get anything satisfactory. I don't trust most authorities to be able to decide these matters for us, and I especially don't trust *populist* plebeian masses to make decisions. I can say with certainty that most of what we consider to be injustices in people's republics, such as the PRC, occured because they were *popular*. People didn't care about laws, logic, principles, etc. Everything was fluid, dynamic, and flowed with the whims of the public. Officials didn't care about laws, they just did things to maintain their popularity and made up laws as they went along. If that meant locking someone up whom everyone else in the village didn't like (even if that individual technically didn't do anything wrong), then that is fine!

What's objectively wrong with parents who send their children to beauty pageants? I don't know. I just know I don't feel comfortable around them and that they aren't popular. I try to keep my personal feelings out of it. Popularity plays a great role in politics (esp democracy), sure, but as someone already said, everything should be taken with some moderation. We should temper our judgment with some logic too. So far, no one has provided anything conclusive.

Last edited by N0x_ at 1:30 pm, May 14 2011

@Nox_ - As far as everything you've said about Indian students is concerned, you are completely correct. I myself see that everywhere around me, and I don't like it at all. I see them following the flock, without a second thought - the average number of students appearing for the IIT-JEE is nearly 6 lakh, and came close to 8 lakh. And this number was brought under control by cutoffs. I can assure from first hand knowledge that barely half of these students are actually serious. I don't understand that at all(in theory, yes, in real life, no.
And none of these guys actually develop their Hindi, let alone English, at all - I found that confounding. Why would you not want to learn the language you speak well?
And why would you get someone else to write your essays?! That feels like blasphemy! Your essays show a part of you, not your counselor, or whatever the person who writes it is. Even if my essay was not good, and had a lot of mistakes, I'd prefer that over a factory made essay - I'd correct the mistakes before I sent it, of course (This is actually the first time I've heard of somone having a first-hand experience of this). Though my attachement to whatever I write is greater than most people's, as fas as I can tell.

For those children, they aren't folllowing their dreams. For whatever reasons have been mentioned in this thread, they are doing something they aren't certain they want to do. They aren't getting a chance to get to know themselves - and it's because of their parents. That's wrong. Parents are supposed to help you learn about the world and yourself, not thrust you into their world, their dreams. That's why I emphasize the concept of choice. If the children want to do it, that's different. They'll learn something whether they fail or succeed, and they'll live their life, not someone else's.

I agree with you - there's nothing wrong with parents who put their children through talent shows, beauty paegents, and other such programs. But it becomes wrong when you are ready to hurt your child for his/her success, and when you force them to participate when they don't want to participate.

Edit - My friend just told me the latest figures - this year, 12 lakh students appeared for the IIT-JEE, and the available number of seats is 9000 on the outside. That's a 0.75 ratio.

Last edited by Casey D. Geek at 6:41 am, May 16 2011

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There are times when you will miss what you never had. I wonder how you will find what you so desperately need.

It's likely the article linked here didn't mention the legal aspects of what the mother is doing since it's from yahoo UK, so the writers probably didn't check into American laws. However, in this (short) article, they do mention the legality of it:

http://moms.today.com/_news/2011/05/13/6637542-mom-who-ja bs-8-year-old-daughter-with-botox-under-investigation

And if you follow the links in that article, you can get a little more info here:

http://moms.today.com/_news/2011/03/25/6338221-mom-gives- botox-to-8-year-old-daughtersay-what-

Unfortunately, I don't know if there are any explicit laws prohibiting doctors from giving Botox to children, but in checking around the FDA website, it seems that doctors do not usually give it to children under the age of 12, even in the treatment of cerebral palsy. (The risk of developing botulism--and dying--from the Botox if it spreads beyond the injection site is too great.) Since Botox is literally a poison, I agree: there absolutely should be laws regulating its cosmetic use on children. If there aren't any, it's probably because (so far) it hasn't been enough of an issue to make laws over it. People under the age of 18 typically want nose jobs, boob jobs, etc., rather than asking for anti-wrinkle procedures like Botox. The only article I can come up with that gives info on minimum ages for cosmetic procedures is this one:

http://www.cosmeticmiracles.com/handbook/a_minimum_age_f or_cosmetic_procedures.html

I actually know of a few people that had breast augmentation when they were really young (16 or 17- and you can definitely tell!)...I cringe to think what's going to happen to them in a few years.

But yeah, Botox is already gross to me. Old women getting them is gross-looking (it can do horrible, horrible things to your face), but they're old enough to decide that it's right for them, and it's nobody's place to judge.

This girl is eight. Eight years old. God this is so messed up on so many levels. This woman needs to go to jail. Her poor daughter is surely going to suffer later on...ugh.

Also: http://uk.lifestyle.yahoo.com/beauty/botox-blocking-emotions-wrin kles-article-uld0.html

There's more information on that on the web. Just google around. But yeah, that is not something I'd put near my face, let alone some poor child's.

They freak me out completely. :'(

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While horrifying, was this enough of a reason to separate the mother from the child?

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Botox Mom story may have been a Hoax

http://dlisted.com/2011/05/19/botox-mom-hoax
http://www.orangecountycriminalattorneysblog.com/2011/05/bot ox-mom-maybe-did-maybe-didn.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpHDOsuDbA0