[SGT T.]

YWS,
It all depends on the age of the child you are raising. Time outs are quite effective on younger children. They had those when I was young. It was called standing in the corner back then, now it just has a fancy new name, but the punishment is the same.

The deal with bad parents... well, my take on it is that socitey has de-valued a great many things, and parenting is one of them, but really thats just a byproduct of the other things, like marriage, and sex. If marraige was held the same value it once did, maybe people would be a bit more careful about who they choose to be their spouse, and not so eager to get married, knowing that if it doesn't work out, you can just get a divorce. And then theres the de-valuation of sex. Sex was not always as blatent and obvious in society as it is now, how may times have you heard the line, "oh, I just slept with him/her, its no big deal." and now that you've got disposible marriages, and disposible sex, guess what comes next, disposible parents. There's only one problem, kids aren't disposible. IMHO, its just lack of accountability and laziness. The common wisdom now is; If my marriage isn't working out, I won't try to fix it, I'll just get a divorce. And if I just need companionship, I won't try to find a spouse, I'll just hook-up with someone. And if my kids are outta line, I won't try to teach them how to be adults, I'll just let them do what they want. Or abuse them, or abandon them.

Sad but true. In my opinion.