[joemoon]

You are conflating two completely separate issues. The amount of time you spend with your child has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not your child is spoiled, undisciplined, pampered, sheltered, etc.

Bad parenting (for lack of a better phase) is what causes these issues, not spending time with your child.

You are trying to make a connection between the two ideas, but I you are just recklessly generalizing your own personal observations of bad parenting.

As a counter example, I spend as much time with my daughter as I can (which is really only a 2-3 hours a day during the week due to work schedule and bed time) and she is absolutely respectful, not spoiled, and has plenty of friends.

I'm sure I'm biased regarding my own daughter; you'll just have to take my word for it.

[akkartik]

His point isn't that spending too much time with children causes them to be spoiled.

People should spend every possible moment with their children. They should also spend every possible moment learning about the world, and every possible moment trying new experiences and getting out of their comfort zone. There aren't enough moments, so you need balance. Lack of balance in one direction is correlated with spoiled children. I think that's all he's saying.

(Personally I think it's hard to cause irreversible damage by spoiling children; it's amazing what they'll outgrow.)

[_cttz]

Generalizing? Sure. Recklessly? I don't know. If you take your point literally, it's impossible to make any social observations at all. That can't be right. An observation needn't be true of everyone (you, for instance, or the OP) to have value.

As for "two completely separate issues", they're not completely separate. They're connected not by necessity but by a model of parenting that is common in our culture.