WORK ETHIC

6/24/2020

This learned trait is an exercise of Newton’s first 2 laws of motion: a body at rest tends to stay at rest, and a body in motion tends to stay in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force. This outside force would be parental training of their children. That sets the pace for their offspring’s work ethic, or the principle that hard work is intrinsically virtuous. Remembering their past and the harsh chores that one had to do in their youth, the parents merely repeated the trend that their parents enforced: work or get whipped. The trend now is to be their kids’ best buddy. This spare the rod and spoil the child attitude is a good move away from child abuse in the past but comes at a price. Constantly saving your child from pulling weeds for hours to promote a healthy lawn is now replaced with a motorized gun that sprays a toxic herbicide that may kill them down the road. Superparent to the rescue. Being their “sole mate” by not kicking their ass to get it done, you pick up the cancer wand and do it yourself. You send them back to the safety of the house, where they can hone their skills on video games. By being Mister Nice Guy, you’ve just enabled their lazy gene. The good news is: they may work for a security force in the future that has carte blanche to indiscriminately kill alleged criminals from patrolling drones. A cross between Sky King and Wyatt Earp, where “gray” areas are covered in blood. By skirting your parental responsibility to infuse a good work ethic in your child and dumping it on someone else just to avoid a potential conflict, they are at the mercy of someone else’s judgement. The only one who loves a drill sergeant is the soldier that is alive when the war ends. This is why parents sign their kids up for sports. They’re hoping that the coach can mold their monster while they buy the ice cream. With a good work ethic, the children will have the needed skills to drive their parents to the hospital for many cancer treatments.