{"id":118548,"date":"2021-03-17T08:57:44","date_gmt":"2021-03-17T12:57:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=118548"},"modified":"2021-03-16T09:58:12","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T13:58:12","slug":"better-parenting-through-western-civ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/better-parenting-through-western-civ\/","title":{"rendered":"Better Parenting Through Western Civ"},"content":{"rendered":"

I enjoy teaching the history course Western Civilization because it has great tips for parenting. I have three children\u2014ages 6, 4 and 21 months\u2014and my wife and I face a problem common to the rulers of the ancient world\u2019s great empires: how to maintain order among an unruly population when you are outnumbered.<\/p>\n

To govern the domain justly, with minimal tantrum\/rebellions, we look to the wisdom of the ancients.<\/p>\n

Ancient emperors liked to present themselves as gods to awe their subjects into compliance. Rulers also liked the attention; it flattered their vanity to be worshipped. One night, my mind flashed to this insight as a dinnertime squabble brewed between my two youngest.<\/p>\n

My baby boy was ready to graduate to the highchair, which of course led his sisters to want to sit in it, too. Thankfully, the oldest was too big, but my second daughter was small enough to fit. Forget the booster seat, once a symbol of big girl status. She wanted the highchair.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day I\u2019d lectured about Cleopatra, the first century BC Egyptian queen, and I had the answer. My daughter wanted to feel special \u2014 to bask in the attention of her siblings \u2014 and what better way than to be Cleopatra making a procession among her adoring subjects?\u201d<\/p>\n

So I called her booster seat the \u201cCleopatra chair,\u201d and buckled my little girl in. I made sure the seat was attached securely to its chair, and I picked up everything\u2014daughter, booster seat, and chair\u2014and paraded her around the kitchen like the queen of Egypt on her throne.<\/p>\n

Thrilled, she ate happily and forgot about the highchair. We still call the booster seat the \u201cCleopatra chair.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rulers of antiquity often faced a surveillance problem when trying to enforce their laws. Transportation was slow, communication was difficult, and the loyalty of underlings charged with carrying out an edict was always suspect.<\/p>\n

My wife and I have faced a similar problem recently when the eye doctor recommended that my son wear an eye patch a couple hours a day to correct the treatable condition called lazy eye.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy students laugh when I tell them Western Civ helps me be a better father. Ancient history is, for them, something so old it can\u2019t possibly be relevant to life today. But I\u2019ve found the opposite is true.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My son naturally hates wearing his eye patch. He\u2019s a toddler, so there\u2019s no reasoning with him, no rewarding him, no bribing him. He doesn\u2019t even care about getting to look like a pirate. We put the eye patch on him, but as soon as we turn our backs, a tearing noise inevitably follows. There goes another patch.<\/p>\n

The Roman dictator Sulla devised a clever\u2014albeit violent\u2014solution to his problem of enforcing his will when he couldn\u2019t be everywhere. He publicly branded his opponents as enemies of the state who anyone could kill on sight. Whoever performed the assassination got to keep a portion of the dead man\u2019s property.<\/p>\n

Now, Sulla\u2019s policy, called \u201cproscription,\u201d sounds like a terrible model for parenting. However, I realized, if I stripped out the cruelty, I had a solution to my surveillance problem: expand the number of people invested in carrying out my wishes.<\/p>\n

So I declared a \u201ctickle proscription\u201d on my son. Whenever anyone sees him touch his eye patch, they must tickle him into submission.<\/p>\n

My daughters love it. They watch their brother like a hawk, keen to tickle him if his hands wander close to his face. My son enjoys it, too. Sometimes he touches his eye patch just looking to get tickled, which is fine as long as it stays on.<\/p>\n

Thanks to a little Roman ingenuity, my wife and I don\u2019t have to watch every movement of our son\u2019s quick little hands for two hours every day to make sure his eye stays covered. We can get other things done.<\/p>\n

My students laugh when I tell them Western Civ helps me be a better father. Ancient history is, for them, something so old it can\u2019t possibly be relevant to life today.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019ve found the opposite is true. The old Greeks and Romans have real insight into my 21st century problems.<\/p>\n

And, yes, knowing a little about Cleopatra can help anyone raise their children.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

David Head is an associate lecturer of history at UCF. He can be reached at\u00a0<\/em>David.Head@ucf.edu<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The<\/em>\u00a0UCF Forum<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0is a weekly series of opinion columns from faculty, staff and students who serve on a panel for a year. A new column is posted each Wednesday on\u00a0<\/em>UCF Today<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and then broadcast on WUCF-FM (89.9) between 7:50 and 8 a.m. Sunday. Opinions expressed are those of the columnists, and are not necessarily shared by the University of Central Florida.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Knowing a little about Cleopatra can help anyone raise their children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":118549,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[3,21],"tags":[17023,2175,7882],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-118548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-opinions","tag-college-of-arts-and-humanities","tag-history","tag-ucf-forum"],"yoast_head":"\nBetter Parenting Through Western Civ | University of Central Florida News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I enjoy teaching the history course Western Civilization because it has great tips for parenting. 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