Being a Parenting Expert

I love being a parenting expert! It’s very rewarding AND it’s lots of fun. I laugh out loud several times a day. Paradoxically, parenting in postmodern America is a Shakespearean tragedy, but it’s also a Mel Brooksian comedy. Nothing approaching its sad absurdity has ever happened to any culture in any time. But I digress.

Because I love being a parenting expert, I have no plans to retire. I am convinced that “parenting expert” is an assignment. It began because a social worker whose husband was editor-in-chief of my local newspaper, The Gastonia Gazette, said, “You have good ideas, John. Would you be interested in writing a weekly column on healthy childrearing practices?”

“Sure,” I said, and two weeks later, Bill Williams and the Gazette published my first column. That was 1976.

Two years into that episode, the Lifestyle editor of The Charlotte Observer called me and said, “We love your column, John! Would you let us have it?”

“Sure,” I said, and the column began getting national attention.

Then, that same Lifestyle editor asked, “Would you like your column to go into syndication?”

“Sure,” I said, and within a couple of years, it was being carried by more than five hundred papers.

Then an acquisitions editor from Andrews McMeel Publishers called and asked if I had any book ideas.

“Sure,” I said, and a year later, they published my first book, The Six-Point Plan for Raising Happy, Healthy Children, which quickly became a big hit in the parenting world, and I began receiving public speaking requests from all over the USA. Some even came in from Europe. I often drew crowds numbering more than one thousand. Standing ovations and all that. Cool beans.

Are you getting this? I did virtually nothing to make all this happen. It just happened. I did not set out to make it happen. It just happened. One day, I woke up to the realization that I was a well-known parenting expert. Like I said, I’m convinced that “parenting expert” is an assignment. I have been tapped to provide a counterpoint to the terrible-awful parenting advice that’s been spewing from America’s mental health industry since around 1970.

What do other psychologists think of me? I’m a thorn in their sides, so they’d like me to ride off into the Last Great Sunset. Their palpable dislike (which has often bordered on hysteria) of what I say is evidence that I am saying what I am supposed to be saying. Their palpable dislike, often bordering on hysteria, of what I say is a big reason why I’m having so much fun.

Are other parenting pundits having fun? I sometimes read their terrible-awful advice. It’s pretty obvious they take themselves very seriously, which is a major obstacle to having fun. I take WHAT I DO very seriously. I don’t take myself seriously at all. Ask my friends if you don’t believe me. Truth be told, I’d much rather be playing in a rock ‘n’ roll band, opening for Metallica or the Stones. (I played in a working rock band from 1965 to 1972, by the way. I lived to tell the tale only by the grace of God.) Truth be told, it’s all rock ‘n’ roll to me, and I like it, like it, yes I do!

I would like to think that I’ve changed the lives of people for the better. I’ve been a parenting expert since 1976 – forty-seven years! During that time, lots of people have blasted away at me – other mental health professionals, mostly – but not one person has ever told me that my advice caused a train wreck or even a tricycle wreck. I conclude that whereas I’ve certainly been wrong about some things over the years, I’ve done no harm.

America’s mental health professions, however, have caused great harm to children, marriages, families, schools, communities, and culture. America’s mental health professions have been a train wreck, a wrecking ball, an ongoing mental health apocalypse. How could it have been otherwise considering that their theories are wrong, their therapies don’t work any better than doing nothing, their tests are bogus, and their practice standards are the definition of absurd? Truth is not their currency. You want good advice concerning your kids? Ask your great-grandmother – someone of my mother’s generation. If she’s not around to ask, then ask someone her age. Or ask someone whose kids are polite, obedient, and don’t attract much attention to themselves. Don’t ask a mental health professional.

“But John!” someone yells. “You are one, right?”

On paper, yes. In my heart, absolutely not. In my heart, I am a Mick Jagger wannabe. At eighty, he looks like he’s having the time of his life. So am I.

Merry Christmas. Happy Chanukah. L’Chaim!

Copyright 2023, John K. Rosemond