When babies are born they are very needy and it takes a lot of work to keep them maintained. We feed them and we change them and we worry about their sleep. They need us. Without the care that we provide for them they would not survive and there is this awesome sense of accomplishment and satisfaction from giving to the point of literally providing life and a hard to describe appreciation that is felt that the baby emits. There is this unconditional exchange of love that occurs. As babies grow a little bit, they know that we are their source when they need something. In the beginning, there is not anything that we won’t do for them and then there is that moment when for the first time we have to express a sentiment that they have never sensed before and that sentiment is “NO”.

I can only imagine that the child is thinking to themselves “What just happened. There must be some kind of mistake here. Hello, we have a deal. I want and you give. That’s the way it works.” I think by definition that this is our sin nature. Now, some people, especially mothers, may not want to think of it that way because taking care of babies is this pure and innocent endeavor, but taking care of babies is the only the first stage of a lengthy process called parenting. There are all kinds of documented issues that occur when a baby does not get the unconditional love and care that we are talking about so I in no way want to diminish the importance of just giving and “spoiling” that baby with love and attention. It needs to be done, but It’s only the first and critical stage in the long process of developing a well rounded adult.

Sometimes, I think that parents are caught off guard by the revelation that they now have to incorporate a new strategy in to their parenting regimen and it can take a little while to get past having to be the bad guy and make your child unhappy, but it has to get done eventually. The problem is when it doesn’t get done at all or not sufficiently enough. Modern parenting techniques and new age thinking have led to a decay in parenting and therefore a decay in society. To placate our feelings of not wanting to do the hard work of parenting we have modified the rules and taken the easy way out and guess what, we are now reaping what we have sown. Entitlement is not the odd occurrence anymore, it is the normal standard of behavior. Along with it are the companion behaviors to keep entitlement alive. Lying, cheating, stealing and abuse are all considered to be necessary because people feel the need to protect and keep an unearned and ungiven alleged right.

We now live in a world where people want what they want and they want somebody else to provide it. And, if someone manages to do well for themselves the expectation is that they will give it to somebody else whether they want to or not. The thought process is not that they should give, but that they have to. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that we shouldn’t be givers, but the mindset that our society is pushing looks strangely like a mindset that we fought to defeat many years ago in a big red country east of us. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now. Entitlement destroys incentive, it destroys moral fiber, it’s bucks against the improvement and growth of individual people and societies. It is the social cancer of our day and it spreading uncontrollably.