Why the standard seems right

Before I argue with the standard, I want to be fair to it, because it isn't unkindness and the reasons for it are mostly good ones.

They can do it sometimes. Sam has remembered the kit. He came off the tablet the first time last Tuesday. He's not incapable, and a thing he's done once is a thing he can do, and a thing he can do and doesn't is a choice.

They're bright. He reads above his age. He can explain the offside rule. A child who can hold the offside rule in his head can hold a PE kit.

You did it at their age. You had your kit. You were ready. Nobody had to tell you three times. Or that's how it seems from here.

Low expectations fail children. You've seen the children whose parents do everything for them, and they're a mess at fourteen. Expecting things of children is how they become capable, and a parent who expects nothing gets nothing.

You're preparing them. The world won't remind them. A boss won't pack their bag. Better they learn now, from you, than later, from someone who doesn't love them.

Consistency matters. Every parenting source says so. If you let the kit go this Thursday, you've taught him that Thursdays are negotiable.

It's how you were raised, for many readers. There was a parent whose standard was adult height, and you met it, or believe you did, and you turned out capable, and the standard gets the credit. Chapter 7 is about that memory, and for now I'd only say that it's a reason that feels like evidence and is actually a reconstruction.

And you're tired, and you've said it three times, and the third time is the one with the label in it, because there's nothing left in you for a fourth.

There are needs under all of this. To raise a capable child. To be taken seriously in your own house. To get out of the door by twenty to nine. Not to be doing at forty what you were doing at thirty-one. Those are real, and the method later in the book is built to meet them. What I'll show is that the standard doesn't meet them. It doesn't make the child capable, because capability at nine isn't made by expectation. It doesn't get you out of the door. And the label, which is where the standard ends up every Thursday, teaches the child exactly one thing, and it isn't responsibility.