We have all been there.
You pack up the family and head to your grandmother’s house for the annual pilgrimage at Christmas or Thanksgiving (or another holiday) and when you arrive, your cousin and his wife are there – with their bratty, undisciplined, ill-behaved pre-pubescent twins, Dick and Jane. You dread the next couple of days because you already know Dick and Jane’s parents will have never and will never control or correct their behavior. Your cousin thinks his kids are precocious, you know they are just assholes in the larval stage.
Based on prior experience, you know these two rules the roost in your cousin’s home because, apparently, your cousin and his wife are so weak and needy, they are afraid any correction of the kids might cause the kids not to love their parents.
Little Dick has no concept of personal space or property and always injects himself into conversations the adults are having, preferring to annoy his elders rather than play with the other kids. Dick is given pretty much everything he wants at home and expects everyone else to treat him the same way.
Young Jane is pretty – but a stone-cold bitch. Selfish and self-righteous to the core, she is always spinning stories about how mistreated she is because her parents expect her to do chores around the house and how her allowance is just not enough compensation for all the pain and suffering. Her life is a daily trip to Hell.
Dick and Jane always upset the other kids by telling them how they are special, how they always get what they want, and how the other kids are all horrid rubes that nobody loves.
A significant amount of time in these visits are always spent unwinding the chaos brought about by Dick and Jane’s poor behavior. Since they are not your kids and you are only going to be at your grandmother’s house for a couple of days, you (and the other relatives) just try to ride it out by ignoring Dick and Jane, but that only makes it worse. The more you ignore them, the more that signals to them they have permission to take it to the next level. It always seems Dick and Jane ruin the holiday trip for everyone else.
Even the other kids realize it. Kids are especially attuned to disparate treatment. Maybe it is because all kids are a little bit selfish (kids must be taught to share), but they wonder why they must set the table, clear the dishes, and help clean up after dinner, especially when Dick and Jane do not. “It’s not fair”, they say when they are told to behave, as Dick and Jane are resting comfortably with their extra cake and ice cream.
It is always frustrating because the adults gathered at your grandmother’s house have ceded undeserved or unearned power to an extreme minority of petulant, misbehaving children simply to avoid conflict. In the minds of the adults, it is a temporary situation and good long-term relationships with your cousins and the other assembled relatives matter more than the immediate discomfort of suffering the bad behavior of a couple of snotty nosed hellions. Even though it is painfully obvious that ignoring the issues just make it worse, Dick and Jane are your cousins’ problem, not yours, right?
But the back of your mind, you know that Dick and Jane are going to be trouble. As they get older, the lack of discipline is going to lead to bad things for your cousins and likely for society in general. The seventeen-year-old Dick is probably going to get high one weekend, steal and crash his neighbor’s fully restored 1968 L88 Corvette. The seventeen-year-old Jane has discovered her beauty opens doors. She has learned to use her feminine wiles to get what she wants – and she is good at it. Sooner or later, she is going to accuse her 45-year-old high school math teacher of sexual abuse when, much to her surprise, he refuses a roll in the hay with her in exchange for an “A” on the final.
Now substitute ANTIFA, BLM, the racist Anti-racists, and even Congressional Democrats for Dick and Jane – because they are the little Dicks and manipulative Janes of our society.
Overall, society knows they are they bad kids and nothing good is going to come of letting them run wild, but are so afraid of conflict, society just lets it go – because it will pass. It is just a phase, right?
But just like unearned, underserved power was given to Dick and Jane at your grandmother’s house, society is giving the same power to BLM, ANTIFA and the other petulant adult children of today.
Remember what Saul Alinsky said: “Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.”
The upshot is this – if you do not want to be falsely accused of sexual assault and have your Corvette stolen at some point in the future, maybe it is time to put a stop to Dick and Jane’s antics while we still can.