Comedian Bill Maher slammed parents who “overindulge” their kids on “Real Time with Bill Maher” on Friday.
Maher called for a “revival of the traditional father” to counter the popular “gentle parenting” style of child-rearing.
“New rule: This Father’s Day, if you want to give your dad something he’ll cherish for the rest of his life, give him permission to be a father like the dads of old,” Maher says. “And before you say, ‘But Bill, you’re not a parent, so what do you know?’ Yeah, I don’t give blowjobs either, but I can tell when someone’s doing it wrong.”
“So, no. I don’t have kids,” he continued. “But I sit next to your kids in restaurants. I see parents in stores kowtowing to their kids like congressmen kowtowing to Trump. I’ve seen a 7-year-old smash a shopping cart into someone’s tailbone, and the parents just shrug and look like, ‘Kids, what are you going to do?’ Raise your kids right. That’s what you can do.”
Maher said the issue of bad parenting was not new, recalling the 1993 “trophy syndrome” debate, “helicopter parenting” and “bulldozer parenting.” The comedian told the audience that “gentle parenting” was the modern version of this, joking that it “used to be” known as “negotiating with terrorists.”
“The issue of parents overindulging their kids has been a topic of discussion for as long as I’ve been on TV, so it’s not new, but it’s not getting any better either,” Maher said.
Maher said:Gentle parentingAsk yourself, “Would I be happy if someone did this to me?” He stressed that children need to be treated differently from adults, echoing the parenting philosophy of author Sarah Ockwell Smith. (RELATED: ‘Only women do this’: Bill Maher calls on ‘mean’ teammates to protect Kaitlyn Clark)
“If someone stripped me naked and submerged me in a tub of water, would I be happy? No, but with a kid, it’s just bath time,” the comedian said.
This is what always happens when ultra-liberal nonsense goes too far. pic.twitter.com/PWAvsFngkp
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) June 15, 2024
Maher recently investigation It found that one in five recent college graduates bring their parents to job interviews, and said that the “average high school student” exhibits “the same level of anxiety as the average mentally ill person in the 1950s.”
“Around 10% of college students claim to have PTSD. Is it from college? The home of safety-ism? Home of safe spaces, trigger warnings and policing of offensive language?,” Maher says. “You’re not supposed to get PTSD in college. You’re supposed to get STIs!”
Maher suggested a return to the traditional father figure might remedy poor parenting practices: “Sex dolls set more boundaries than modern parents do,” he said, to erupting cheers from the audience.
“Traditional fathers don’t negotiate. They say, ‘Apologize to your mother. Don’t swerve the car. Life isn’t fair, and things happen. Clean your room. The adults are talking, so be quiet. And be quiet. It’s not all about you.'”
Mr Maher warned that the lack of strong male role models is creating a “far more harmful backlash”, with young boys “turning instead to muscle-bound, misogynistic influencers”, naming social media influencer Andrew Tate.
