The latest parenting trend doesn’t borrow from the French or from the past. Its inspiration is the poor. That’s right. Rich and a-little-bit-less-rich (ie. “middle class”) parents are starting to take a good look at their own spoiled-rotten little brats and then compare them to the self-sufficient and less demanding kids of poor people.
“It’s not really fair,” one North Toronto mom said. “The amount of time I spend trying to teach my kids that money doesn’t just grow on trees and instill in them some sense of gratefulness, you know? I mean, kids whose parents really can’t afford a Sky Zone birthday party don’t even have this problem.”
The solution is something called Ghetto-rearing. Parents try to mimic the lifestyles of the very poor and marginally poor in a last-ditch effort to teach their kids to stop being so fucking spoiled. This includes things like taking public transportation. Die-hard adherents might even go so far as to leave one car at the cottage all winter long. Desperate parents of kids who have never heard the word “no,” are even setting aside nutritional, environmental and ethical concerns, and stocking up on highly processed foods like boxed and microwavable meals. The food itself might not be good for them, but the fact that they can learn to get their own damn dinner most definitely is.