Charles Barkley shared some eye-opening views on parenting on Monday.
The never-afraid-to-speak-his-mind basketball Hall of Famer had a long rant about why he believes current athletes lack “discipline” during an appearance on the “Dan Patrick Show.”
“You can’t even yell at them anymore,” Barkley said, referring to current players.
Barkley blames how they were raised.
“People talking about you can’t yell at your kids. Yes, hell you can yell at your kids,” Barkley said. “You’ll whoop their ass too … That’s why these kids are crazy.”
“I’m not going around telling people to beat their kids, but I think if you don’t spank your kids and discipline them, they turn into some of these brats that we got today,” Barkley continued. “I’m not here for child abuse, but how are kids gonna know they’re doing something wrong? First of all, you can’t rationalize with kids, they’re dumber than rocks. They don’t know they’re doing stuff wrong. But when you spank them, that gets the message across because they don’t want that.”
It’s far from the first time Barkley has spoken out on the state of modern athletes.
In 2024, Barkley ripped the idea of “load management” when talking about the 76ers’ handling of the oft-injured Joel Embiid.
It’s a topic Barkley has long been interested in, having called NBAers out, saying the league is “giving $200-$300 million out like candy” on players that don’t want to take the court.
A year earlier, Barkley questioned whether Warriors star Stephen Curry would be able to handle playing against the Pistons “Bad Boys” of his era.
As he said Monday, Barkley doesn’t care if anyone has a problem with what he says publicly.
“You can blast me on social media. You guys know I don’t do social media. I don’t ever read any comments. I don’t care what you think. Y’all can kiss my big Black a–,” Barkley said.
