Why do today's parents have more problems with obedience than their grandparents thought possible?
Since obedience requires that a child (a) clearly and correctly perceives that his parents are providing for him the steady authority he cannot provide himself and, therefore, (b) pays close attention to them, the answer is obvious: Many if not most of today's parents do not cause their children to (a), so children do not do (b).
Why not? Because today's parents—especially those who consume parenting information—(a) desire close relationships with their children and (b) pay lots of attention to them.
Respect requires boundaries. People who do not establish clear relationship boundaries open themselves to being exploited and taken for granted—that is, disrespected. In the course of striving to form close relationships with their children, they fail to establish boundaries.
The more attention a parent pays to a child, the less attention the child will pay to the parent. The problem is the logical consequence of the very bad parenting advice mental health professionals have been dispensing since the 1960s.
Parents can turn the parenting clock, in their own homes, back 60 years. I personally know some who've done it. Without exception, their children obey them.
