Your Child Could Be A Jerk

People love stories with happy endings. There’s a reason Romantic Comedy movies continue to be made even though the same storyline plays out:

1. Boy meets girl

2. They hit it off

3. Something bad leads you to believe they won’t end up together

4. They end up happy together

Everyone that’s watching a Romantic Comedy knows how the story is going to end. But they keep watching because it’s an easy story to follow, you can identify with one of the characters, there are some comedic moments, and it gives you a happy feeling at the end.

People are geared and trained to think optimistically. I think this is a good thing. I’d be willing to bet a lot of money that adults planning to have children assume that their child will turn out to be the perfect kid. That’s what happens in the movies so that’s what has to happen to them, right? Well maybe not.

I want to you try an experiment. Find someone who is in the process of thinking about having a child. This could be a friend, coworker, or acquaintance (you probably don’t want to ask a complete stranger since you’ll weird them out.) Ask them these two specific questions:

1. Do you think your child will grow up to be a good person?

They’re answer will of course be “Yes.” 

2. How do you know?

At first, you’re going to get some weird and confused looks. Then they’ll probably start talking about how they’re going to be a good and attentive parent. They’ll raise their child with good morals and blah blah blah.

Now, if you’re really brave you can ask the following question, or you can just drop the conversation and say, “That’s great, I think it’s really important for parents to play an active role in their child’s growth.”

3. What if your child doesn’t follow your parenting guidance and ends up resenting you?

Here’s the point. There are people in this world that are not good people. There are people that physically harm others, people that are a drain on society, and people that consistently break laws. I’d be willing to bet some, not all, but some of the parents of these people actually did a pretty good job of being parents.

It turns out even with a great upbringing and responsible parents, people can still turn out to be jerks.

Here’s a real-life example.

I typically go to the gym on Saturday morning to get in a workout. I enjoy routine so I leave to go to the gym at the same time every Saturday and park in the same general area of the parking lot. Other gym goers tend to do the same thing and park in the same general area as me.

One day I was pulling into the parking lot at the same time as one of the cars I recognized – a very expensive car. A gentleman in his 60’s got out of his car and we said “hi” to each other. We continued to small talk as we walked into the gym together.

We continued to get to know each other over the years and Roger and I will talk about business, life, and cars. I found out he owns his own business and buys a new car every 6 months. And I’m talking about expensive cars. $100k+ expensive!

Christmas Eve happened to land on a Saturday one year and I saw Roger at the gym and wished him Happy Holidays. He said the holidays aren’t a very happy time for him and his wife.

He told me that the holiday’s reminded him of his family. He went on to tell me that his son worked at his company with him. They had a falling out in their personal lives and Roger’s son wanted to get back at him. His son came up with a series of lies and ended up suing the business for misconduct.

He sued Roger’s company for $1 million.

Kids can be jerks.

You can do everything right when raising a child, but that child can still turn out to be a jerk. That’s the problem. You can raise a child with good morals and give them every opportunity to succeed in life, but humans have a way of becoming their own person and sometimes that person is a jerk. It’s just natural humanity unfortunately. There’s always going to be a bad apple in the bunch, you just have to hope that’s not your child.