Messages For My Children: It's Ok to Say NO to Bad Ideas
Your generation needs good people to give good NOs
Messages For My Children is a series of letters to my two children that I hope will be a legacy for them long after I’m gone.
Dear Scott and Ruby,
You have both come to maturity in a world that abhors the word ‘NO.’ Your schools, your shows, your music, your favorite entertainers - they have all told you repeatedly the word ‘NO’ indicates a closed mind. They say all ideas have truth and value. They hold tolerance as the highest virtue. They see criticism as cruelty and questioning as weakness.
Think about your peers. How many of them are seriously lacking a NO in their lives? We’ve had many conversations about those type of kids over the years. Without parents who present boundaries they often grow into selfish, aggravating, argumentative people who lack the self awareness needed to be a productive part of society. In short, they’re unlikable.
People who don’t hear NO enough become weak thinkers. They don’t know how to problem solve, how to compromise, or how to just deal with it. It’s annoying when those people are children. It becomes a huge problem when those children become adults in charge of things.
As you age, you will come into contact with all kinds of terrible ideas pushed by incurious people. Those people will be passionate and mostly convinced they have arrived at their ideas through sensitivity and tolerance. Their intentions may be good, but their ideas will always sow the opposite of good. And they will look to you to confirm their very terrible, no-good ideas, because you are kind and intelligent and carry a certain authority about you - one that comes from being confident in your identity and your created purpose. They’ll want a piece of that, and if you share their ideas, it will feel like they share you.
But if you hear a very terrible, no-good idea that strikes you as absurd from the start, you must not be afraid to say the one thing so many around have trained you to never say…NO.
There are some things that truly do not need a discussion or an argument. Not everything, but some. I trust that we’ve raised you with enough good sense to know a very terrible, no-good idea when you hear it. When you hear it, please know it is perfectly fine to tell someone they are wrong, their idea stinks and you simply don’t buy it. If you’d like to engage in a rational explanation of your view, do so, but don’t feel obligated. Sometimes the NO is enough.
Sometimes people need to hear that not every thought they have is valid, not every idea they believe is truthful. For a generation that has grown up believing everyone in the world must bend to their feelings, NO can have a powerful, sobering affect. It sends a signal to the weak thinker that they will have to reason through their argument or retreat. It forces them to confront the mechanics of their idea, and typically it puts them face-to-face with all the fragilities of their reasoning.
The weak-minded will respond with anger, offense and self-righteousness. When it comes to those people, do not waste your time responding in kind. Say NO, and let your NO stand. If it is something you’ve thought through and feel confident about, be content in the knowledge that you won’t be removed from your logic. Let them sit with your NO. Let them be angry. Let them judge.
Your grandfather gave me a wonderful piece of advice when we first became parents. He said, “Don’t be afraid to bear the wrath of your children.” He meant there would be times we make decisions and issue discipline that would anger our children, and cause them to act out towards us, and that we should not be afraid to endure that anger. We should not let it prevent us from doing what it is right for our children’s futures. In the end, our NOs are based in a love for the truth, and the mission we’ve been given to raise a productive, kind, godly family.
Don’t be afraid to bear the wrath of those on the receiving end of your NO. They may end up thinking poorly of you, but do you really want to be embraced by morons? Do you really want to trade the truth for acceptance?
Your generation needs good people to give good NOs. Not all the time, but when it counts.
And as always, when you are unsure of when your NO should be NO and your YES should be YES, turn to the Word. God has left us a very thorough guidebook and all your answers are there.
There is a joke that I repeat to new parents. “You are one step closer to your son or daughter moving out of your house.” It is not meant to say they are about to endure two decades of anguish. It is, as the previous comment states, that they have started the task of raising adults. I’ve told my 12-year old many times that my wife and I are her buddies as we like doing fun things together. But we are not her friends. There is a big difference.
Thank you, Kira, for sharing your wisdom with these messages. Keep ‘em coming!!
I was listening to something yesterday that was similar to the issues you bring up here. It was talking about how some families just can't let go of the cell phones for their kids, despite the mass evidence that kids would be better off without them until they are older. One comment was that the kids run the family. And that is so very true.
My best friend said her dad had a philosophy regarding having children and it was "the point of the entire exercise is to raise an adult". I see too many people that want to have a little friend for themselves. That does them absolutely no good in the long run. I don't know when that changed.