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Because I Said So!
Season Two Coming in September!
Because I Said So! is a podcast by John Rosemond. John is the nation’s leading parenting expert and provides common-sense advice for raising your children. John is a nationally syndicated columnist, author and public speaker. His audiences are left feeling empowered, educated and entertained.
A family psychologist by license, John points out to all his audiences that “psychology has caused more problems than it has solved for American parents.” John’s mission is to be a counter-weight to the psychological parenting paradigm that was sold to America in the late 1960s/early 1970s, restore commonsense to the raising of children, and give parents the guidance needed to raise happy, well-mannered children who will, as adults, contribute value to culture and society.
Because I Said So!
Because I Said So!
What if the parenting advice we've trusted for decades is actually leading us astray? On this episode of "Because I Said So," I challenge the modern parenting mantras that have become gospel since the 1960s. Born from a period of societal upheaval, these psychological theories have encouraged us to sideline the wisdom of our elders in favor of expert opinions lacking real-world experience. Join me as I share my own journey from a liberal college student to a conservative advocate for traditional parenting, exploring how this shift has impacted families, including my own, and questioning whether these expert-led paradigms have contributed more harm than good.
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You Got Yourself Some Children Driving you crazy. They're keeping you up all night long. You better turn on your radio Dial up to John Roseman's show, because I said so. Hey there, and welcome to another episode of Because I Said so, with your host, john Rosemond. That would be me the only podcast on the entire World Wide Web where you will hear the unexpurgated unexpurgated go look it up truth about America's mental health professional farce and children and how to raise them properly.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you're with us, and today I'm going to talk about two of the most idiotic things that psychologists have ever said, beginning with the idea that we should never say because I said so to children. And number two, but in no particular order, the idea that children should be allowed to express their feelings freely. Yes, folks out there who were born after 1960, that is exactly what America's mental health professional idiots were telling parents in the late 1960s and 1970s and which brought about a what I call the psychological parenting revolution in America, which has resulted in a tenfold drop in child mental health in this country. I'm telling you folks, the worst mistake we ever made in this country and I mean that I'm considering everything, slavery and everything else the worst mistake we ever made in this country was to listen to mental health professional psychologists, clinical social workers, marriage and family therapists, blah, blah, blah, of which, by the way, I am one. A family psychologist was licensed by the North Carolina Psychology Board from 1979 to just a couple of months ago. When I turned my license in in good standing and was told I can have it back anytime I want, I simply retired my license. I was tired of jumping through the hoops to get it renewed. To tell you the truth, anyway, because I said so, your host, john Roseman, and buckle in, buckle up and buckle down, and anyway, I don't know about you, but I'm, and I, you know the 1960s and I, you know the 1960s.
Speaker 1:I entered the 1960s a total geek, 13 years old. What was I? In the eighth grade or something like that? A geek, four eyes. I wore glasses that were, you know, the lenses were an inch thick. And I exited the 1960s married with a child and supporting my family by playing in a rock and roll band. I had officially done my service as a geek and was now a campus rock star.
Speaker 1:Anyway, you know, the 60s was a great time for me. It was a terrific time, it was exciting. It caused me to grow up in very paradoxical sorts of ways. But I am ready for the 60s to be over and done with. To tell you the truth. Over and done with. To tell you the truth, I was a ranting rock and rolling leftist, radical liberal in the 1960s when I got to college and I am today and have been for the last I don't know 40 years, I guess a right wing, and I understand we are all fascists. So I'm a fascist, right wing, fascist, conservative guy who voted for Donald Trump three times and would vote for him again if he ever ran again. I wouldn't care how old he was, by the way. But I'm ready for the 60s to be over and done with.
Speaker 1:That very destructive decade has ruled American child rearing for 54 years now and pretty well ruined it in the process. Before the 1960s, parents sought child-rearing advice from their elders. You had a problem with your child and children have always been problematic to one degree or another. I mean going back to Adam and Eve. So when parents prior to the 1960s came across, you know, slammed into a problem with a child, they went to the child's grandparents or a great aunt or something like that, and those people extended family members for the most part were the people who gave what we today call parenting advice. Since then, since the 1960s, parents have sought advice from a professional class, which is to say people like me. We so-called experts were able to convince the American parent of a truly absurd proposition, to wit, that a 35-year-old who possesses a graduate degree in child psychology, has been married for five years and has one child age two knows more about children and how to raise them properly than an 85-year-old woman who never finished the eighth grade but who raised 10 kids into successful, responsible adulthoods. Like I said, the proposition is absurd on its face, but American parents, beginning in the 1960s, were sucked into the idea that capital letters after your name meant you knew what you were talking about.
Speaker 1:Anyway, a few years ago, as I was driving down the 405 in Los Angeles I don't live anywhere close to Los Angeles, ladies and gentlemen, I live in New Bern, north Carolina, and I am currently broadcasting this from the penthouse in Rosemond Towers on Craven Street in New Bern, north Carolina but a few years ago I was driving down the 405 in LA with nothing to do but stay in my lane and think, and I started getting really worked up about all this, this, this parenting stuff. But instead of road rage which is a misdemeanor in Los Angeles, but only if you kill the other guy, then it's a misdemeanor I was having a attack of psychobabble rage. Psychobabble rage, it's a. It's a misdemeanor. I was having a attack of psychobabble rage. Psychobabble rage it's a diagnostic category that I invented Psychobabble rage.
Speaker 1:I started thinking about the really dumb things the professional babblers began telling parents in the 1960s and I've already run them by you, but I'll say it again. For example, quote children need to be able to freely express their feelings. The entire mental health community got behind this idea in the late 1960s, claiming it wasn't really a claim. It was the truth that children in my generation, baby boomers, were not allowed to express their feelings freely. That is true. That is absolutely 100% true. Baby boomers myself, my peers we were not allowed to express our feelings freely. Let me ask you a question, folks have you ever been around someone who believes that he is entitled to express his feelings freely? These are people who are antisocial, sociopathic and potentially homicidal maniacs. Why would you, why did we ever think that it would be a good idea to allow children to freely express their feelings. It was like America, just you know, suffered a collective stroke in the 1960s when it came to children and how to raise them properly. Children need to be allowed to freely express their feelings. The entire mental health community in America got behind this sort of lunacy In 1969, when Willie and I Willie is my wife Nhi Wilma told her when I asked her to marry me, I said the only caveat here is I cannot call you Wilma.
Speaker 1:I just you know, it's that Flintstones thing. And so I renamed her Willie, w-i-l-l-i-e, not W-I-L-L-Y, that's a Jeep, I believe. Anyway, in 1969, when Willie and I became parents, she was 19, I was 20. Yeah, and we are now married 56 and almost half years and going strong and having a great time. But in 1969, when Eric was born, willie and I believed what the mental health professional community was telling American parents. In large part we believed it because I was in graduate school preparing to become a psychologist. It took three, four years for us to snap out of it, but by then our first child, eric. He ruled I mean completely ruled our family with his habit of freely and loudly expressing his feelings whenever we failed to obey him. It took a while, but I finally realized that children should not be allowed to freely express much of anything.
Speaker 1:The natural inclination of the child is antisocial and narcissistic. That is a child's natural inclination. Children believe this is the universal belief of the child. Children believe that what they want they deserve to have and because they deserve it, the ends just by the means. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to repeat that because then I'm going to say something that's going to rock your world. Children believe that what they want they deserve to have and because they deserve it, they believe the ends just by the means. Tyrants believe the same thing. Hitler, stalin, pol Pot believe the same thing. Therefore, children are tyrants by nature. You give a tyrant an inch or a child an inch, and the tyrant or the child will demand a mile. Excuse me while I take a drink of coffee here, as if I'm not already jacked up enough.
Speaker 1:Parents show their love for their neighbors by and listen to the word, I'm using it very purposefully. Parents show love for their neighbors by forcing their children to subdue their inner bullies and show respect for the needs of others. And yes, force is required. You cannot talk a child into giving up his delusions of grandeur and omnipotence, that would be omnipotence. Once force has succeeded in creating a child who will give his parents his undivided attention, then, and only then, can his parents teach what they need to teach. Force is the horse that pulls the cart of teaching. And before the child abuse zealots go absolutely insane, allow me to clarify I am not talking about spanking when I use the word force. That is not what I am referring to, although I'm not completely eliminating the option either. The most effective parenting force is the force of a parent's personality, applied calmly, with steely resolve. The word most associated with parenting force is no, followed by I don't care.
Speaker 1:So just as a child should learn that certain behavior is inappropriate to certain situations, a child should learn that the expression of certain feelings is inappropriate to certain situations. Children should learn it is just plain wrong to get mad when you lose a game. It's wrong to laugh when someone gets hurt. It's wrong to cry when you don't get your way. Just as a child's behavior must be disciplined, so must a child's feelings, and so must a child's thinking. Children should learn that certain thoughts are correct and other thoughts are wrong. Thinking like a Democrat is incorrect. Thinking like a Republican is correct, for example. That's just an example, but seriously, wrong thinking leads almost inevitably to wrong behavior, leads almost inevitably to wrong behavior.
Speaker 1:So on all three counts behavior, feelings and thinking parents need to be unequivocal. They need to make themselves perfectly clear what they expect and what they will and will not tolerate. What they expect and what they will and will not tolerate. Yes, american parents, you need to wake up from the 1960s. Even if you weren't around then, I mean you can't believe. You young parents, you cannot believe how much you are affected by the lunacy that erupted in the 1960s. You need to wake up from the 1960s. You need to wake up from the 1960s. You need to take the flowers out of your hair. You need to take that oblong, cylindrical thing out of your mouth, roll up your shirt sleeves and get back to the work of raising good citizens, defined simply as people who would rather serve than be served, people with more esteem for other people than themselves, people who love their neighbors. Now there is some change I could really believe in, believe in.
Speaker 1:The 1960s were marked by several assassinations, the war in Vietnam, recreational drugs, air zaps, peace and love and a plague still with us of general stupidity when it came to children. A prime example of the latter is the notion that parents should not answer challenges to their authority with the words because I said so. The new parent babblers, mental health professionals mostly almost all of them maintain that those four words insulted a child's intelligence, damaged the child's self-esteem, stifled curiosity, engendered feelings of insignificance and powerlessness and sent the message that might makes right. This is the kind of stuff America's mental health professionals were telling parents concerning because I said so in the late 1960s. The upshot of this nonsense was that parents began explaining themselves to their children. These explanations lead almost inevitably to arguments. The arguments in turn lead to frustration, resentment, yelling, guilt, stress, anger and other symptoms of dysfunction.
Speaker 1:What is that old saying about good intentions, as did most members of my generation? I heard because I said so as a child. I heard it fairly often. In fact, I didn't like it, but neither did I suffer from because I said so induced trauma. I just didn't like it. But then children don't like a lot of things that are in their best interest.
Speaker 1:Coffee yeah, by the way, the coffee I drink comes from aldi. It's like five dollars a bag for organic peruvian or honduran coffee. I mean, why? Why, once you know that you can get organic Peruvian or Honduran coffee at Aldi. Would you buy your for five dollars a bag? Would you buy your coffee anywhere else? I mean, it's wonderful coffee and my wife and I have a machine, one of those machines. I have a machine, one of those machines we bought it for ourselves for Christmas a couple of years ago that you know grind the beans to your custom specifications and heat the water to your custom specifications and you know it's pour over coffee and it I mean the, the, the, uh, the beans that we buy at Aldi are wonderful, so are most of the things we buy at Aldi, which are, you know, like, in many cases less than half the price of the equivalent um name brand. Uh, that, uh, you, you get at your local give-me-your-money grocery store.
Speaker 1:Anyway, because I said so is a simple, very simple declarative statement of leadership. That's all it is. Because I said so. The biblical reference, by the way, go ahead and read it Ephesians 6, verse one children obey your parents. And I'm paraphrasing here Children obey your parents because they are acting in place of the Lord. So it says obey your parents as you would the Lord. So it says obey your parents as you would the Lord, okay. So not obey your parents because they give you a good reason or issue a motivating enough threat or promise you something motivating enough. Just obey them. What they tell you to do, do it Because they say so. So it's a simple declarative statement of authority of leadership.
Speaker 1:Leadership is primarily a matter of decisiveness and effective leaders as opposed to politicians, they don't often justify their decisions to the people that they are charged with leading. When a leader begins justifying his decisions, explaining them, justifying his decisions, explaining them, you know, basically pleading with people to agree with him the leader begins to sound less than completely confident in his leadership, and that's a killer. Effective leaders here's the rule they act like they know what they're doing. That's it. Effective leaders act like they know what they're doing and, as a consequence, they inspire confidence, they inspire trust and they inspire people to do their best. Effective leaders act like they know what they're doing and they inspire people to do their best. Effective leaders act like they know what they're doing and because I said so is simply part of the act, Because I said so also keeps things simple for the people being led. They don't have to know what the leader knows, they simply have to know what the leader knows. They simply have to trust.
Speaker 1:So, as regards children, those much maligned four words are an economical way of saying to a child at this point in your life, child of mine, you're incapable of understanding how I make decisions. Explanations, therefore, are superfluous. To your well-being, for now and for the time being, all you need to do is trust me. I'm taking care of business for you. Isn't that great? But john, the listener with a bleeding heart, might well reply if a child asks a question, doesn't the child deserve an answer? Well, it depends on the question. I mean, if the child asks you know why does the sun appear to rise over the horizon in the east? Oh, great one. Yeah, you answer that question, but why and why not? And here's how they come across why and why not? Those aren't questions.
Speaker 1:Those belligerent responses to parental decisions are not questions. They are challenges to parental authority. If they were genuine questions, children would listen respectfully to the answer and, at least occasionally, agree oh, mom, now that you explain it that way, I can't help but agree. No, they don't do that. Instead, they interrupt and begin arguing, and not some of the time, but all of the time. Which is to say, to sum this up, there is no such thing as an argumentative child, there's no argumentative gene, there's no argumentative biochemical, there is no argumentative brain lobe. There are only parents who are not comfortable with their authority and cannot bring themselves to say because I said so, do you have any other questions? Good, and that's a wrap.
Speaker 1:Folks, I'm so glad you joined me for this episode of Because I Said so. Ironically, the title of this podcast is also the title of this episode. You join me, and if you want more information about me and my ministry slash mission to American parents and, through the internet, to parents worldwide, you can go to John Rosemond j-o-h-n-r-o-s-e-m-o-n-D is at the end, dot com. Or you can go to parentgurucom, or you can go to substackcom I write a weekly substack or you can go to cleartruthmediacom, where I write two essays a month. So please stay up with me Again, days a month. So please stay up with me Again. And I say this, you know, sort of with tongue in cheek, but it's the truth. This is the only podcast on the entire World Wide Web where you will hear the truth, the unvarnished, unexpurgated. Nothing but the truth about America's mental health professionals and nothing but the truth about children and how to raise them properly. So folks have a good day. Adios, aloha, mahalo and all that other kind of stuff, bye-bye.
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