Where to start? I wish I knew, but I'll do the best I can. Buckle up because this is a long one...
It's hard to say what generation dropped the ball when it comes to our youth. The Generation X group from 1961-1981 would be where I'd start.
We didn't preserve our core values that our parents (from the Baby Boomer era) taught us. We compromised on our beliefs and because of it, we live in a country full of young, lost souls.
So many of us were raised in two-parent households, but ended up as single parents ourselves. Dads raised their sons to be men, but now that job seems to belong to a lot of women. Women have "worn the pants" in their families for so long that their daughters never seem to learn how to be ladies.
What made us change? Why did we, out of all of the people before us, choose to be the group to compromise our values?
Why did we choose to be the generation to make it "okay" to have children without a two-parent household?
Why did we choose to be the generation to make it "okay" to choose buying a material thing over this month's rent?
Why did we choose to be the generation to make it "okay" to have enough visible tattoos to make it hard to tell where your shirt ends and skin begins?
Society played a role in it. Corporations got greedy and inflation out-paced salaries requiring more two income households. That meant no more "June Cleavers" staying home while the "Ward Cleavers" went off to work to bring home the bacon.
With both parents now working in households lucky enough to have two, who's watching the kids?
Well, when I was growing up, I was lucky enough to have responsible adults to look after me while my mom and dad worked. My grandmother lived in my neighborhood and my best friend's grandmother stayed just two houses down. All of them allowed me access to their homes as if I were their kid and they also kept me in line if I acted up.
What are our options now? Daycare? A system that rarely allows for people who truly have love for your child to nourish, educate, and discipline them? That's our resolution? To have strangers raise our kids?
My aunt and uncle, who own a daycare, wouldn't be happy with that statement, but I'm just making a point. :)
So, if kids aren't getting the love, discipline and life lessons at the day care, then it's pretty much up to the parents (or in most cases, the mother) to instill that at home. Is that easy to do when your child is spending 40 hours a week around strangers learning new habits?
Gen X'ers, we've failed our youth. It has led to females who lack lady-like qualities and options in a suitable mate as well as males who are in a perpetual state of boyhood.
I think it started with the self esteem movement that told us that he shouldnt hurt the kid's feelings. The end result is a bunch of spoiled brats.
ReplyDeletePreach, Israel! I do think that played a role in it. It has come in the form of not using red ink to grade papers because it's "too harsh" to everyone gets a trophy, even if you lose.
ReplyDeleteThis is what I always say to people when they talk bad about children that misbehave. People shouldn't be so quick to put the blame on the children themselves; the parents are the first ones that should be called out. Like I seem to always say in most posts about children, parents are allowing their children to be raised by television and media, and they are being destroyed mentally. Too many babies are having babies. I agree with Israel; there is a school that are doing what they call "Urkeling", where they will pull the students pants way up on them to cause embarrassment, and that had stopped about 80 percent of the problem with the saggy pants. Parents are having children and waiting on someone else to raise them. Parents that shouldn't be parents, I should have said.
ReplyDelete"Urkeling"? Nice! That would be a deterrent to a lot of saggers.
ReplyDelete