I've seen it by the dashboard light

I never saw paradise by the dashboard light, but I did see thorazine.  In the 70's life was a bit more archaic than it is now.  Now when children are nauseated or car sick we give our children Dramamine, Cola syrup, Emetrol, or Nausene.
Not so back then!  I remember the little brown pills.  I also remember taking benadryl capsules to school.  I learned how to open and close them again, only losing small amounts of benadryl powder.  Now kids can't even bring an aspirin to school.
So much has changed some for the better some for the worse.  We no longer give our children antipsychotics for tummy troubles and night terrors...now we do the unthinkable!  We cripple them emotionally.

We assess the situation and soothe ourselves by conveniently labeling our children and placing them on shelves to be taken down, dusted off and shown about like trophies. We boast about how many sports they play and how over scheduled they are...just to tire the darlings out. We wouldn't dare swear at them, or tell them they are anything less than perfect and the world owes them everything.  We wouldn't dare raise a hand to spank them or correct them in any physical manner.  To do so would harm their delicate  psyche's!  Instead, we medicate them to oblivion and promise ourselves we are doing the right thing as they plod along in a drug induced stupor never learning that they are less than perfect.  Never knowing that there ARE people bigger, stronger, meaner and much more cruel out there they drift off into life and become utter failures as teenagers.  They lie, cheat, steal, and have to hide in alleys to learn the ways of life, but the ways of life they learn in alley's isn't the true way of life.

Life IS hard work.  There will ALWAYS be someone bigger, faster, stronger, meaner, smarter, more cunning. Your child WILL lose.  We have in essence emotionally crippled our children in our desperate bid to save them from all of the hurt feelings we experienced as children when we learned early on;

1. Don't hit; people hit back and it hurts...also sometimes you bleed but blood washes away.
2. How to defend yourself when you are being bullied instead of hiding from life.
3. Words hurt and the pain on a friends face showed us that, or the slap across the face did.
4. Work it out!  When problems arise find common ground and man up.
5. F's don't mean fantastic, they mean you fail, not that your parent has to decide if you need to be held back.
6. People have talents, not all deserve to be treated like winners in all areas.
7. Losing sucks but it happens; To win takes work.
8. Playing yourself tired with some free time and a bike felt great!
9. To have friends you have to give a little.
10. Being punished doesn't feel good

We are destroying our children and causing violence to escalate by not allowing violence to wear itself out early on.  Most of us had fingernail files in school but we didn't stab each other, we already knew pokey things hurt!  We learned that because we were allowed to make a few mistakes.  If I never had learned that my friends cry when I hit them I wouldn't know it.  Had I never been hit, I wouldn't know that it hurt.  Had I never been spanked I would never have felt that anger inside that made me swear to be a better person to my own child.....then turn around and spank him for running in a parking lot.  That spanking taught him it was dangerous to run in a parking lot.  He might be alive today because I spanked him.  I cared enough to tell him he was stupid, to watch where he was going...that it isn't the person's fault if they can't see you...YOU watch out for you by being safe.  It is my job to watch out for my son, to teach him empathy, right from wrong, winning and losing, how to be careful...also that sometimes life hurts, or sometimes life is a bitch but we call her Mommy.  Sometimes (hopefully) the kids get so angry with  Mom they call her other nasty names too, and swear that they are going to kick Dad's butt one day.  You know what?  Your kids are supposed to be unhappy because you make the rules and they don't like to be told no.  But no is a really important word to learn.  Kids also like boundaries.  Boundaries are safe.  Kids also need to learn how to negotiate a fair deal for themselves too.  They need to have the ability as teens to say that they don't like a consequence, make a decision and help choose punishments and rewards.  We need to grow with our kids, not go with them and chase after them hoping to catch up.

Far too many parents are letting the kids lead the family...if you don't feel like a failure at times then you probably have failed your kids already.