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This post reminds me of a conversation my neice, my sister, my mom, her mom and my great-grandmother (God rest) were having (yes, 5 generations.)
My neice was talking about the car ride to school and how awful it was. My sister stated, "try riding the bus". My Mom said - try riding your bike... My grandmother said, Well at least you had a bike, I had to take my shoes off walk to school then put them back on once I got there. (red dirt ya know.) My great-grand mother piped up and said, "At least you had shoes".
Every generation is convinced that the next generation is spoiled and the eventual downfall of all society.
Not saying everything was great back when or is bad now, but one look at our society today tells me they knew what they were talking about. We ARE increasingly spoiled as time goes on, and it's not a good thing, to put it mildly. Human beings weren't meant to be spoiled; in fact, we instinctively hate it as we know it's not for us....but consciously, we LOVE it anyway (rather like a kid who knows too much candy is bad but goes for it anyway)......and awaaaaay we go.....
I'm shocked at what kids are exposed to today. The personal violence, the exposure to the lowest elements of culture as being pushed as mainstream... We weren't even allowed to read comic books. Life was much simpler then, maybe a lot of work, but not as complicated. It has to be a real challenge these days to bring up kids properly. So much input and lots of it not good.
I can't say I knew how to fill out a job application when I left home. Did you? I would probably freak out today if I had to watch "The Rocky Mountain Picture Show" - I don't think that's a bad trait.
VERY well said - unfortunately. I truly pity kids today, and generations such as ours who have #@$!ed things up are to blame.
VERY well said - unfortunately. I truly pity kids today, and generations such as ours who have #@$!ed things up are to blame.
Our "baby" is 18, and our sons are long since grown and gone. It has been within the last several months that we have - for the first time - subscribed to cable TV. Part of me regrets it, though my wife & daughter love HGTV and I kind of like The History Channel.
I honestly think that kids need to NOT have computer & video games, and cable TV. That way they have to think for themselves, entertain themselves, and (god forbid!) go outside and play!
We're giving kids too much - and it's too much of the wrong stuff.
they have a lot of information and knowledge but very few life skills.
Not sure about "very few," but yes, my concern is that they have a lot more information (esp technically speaking) but less knowledge or "wisdom" about the world around them - the lines between fantasy and reality are being more and more blurred, and as a result their perspective are getting more bent, even warped. They are saturated in all the video games and silly "reality" shows (which are about as real as magic). Yikes.
That's not all about the schools though. The thing is that kids/people back when didn't have the time for such garbage, even if it had existed....a lot more time was required taking care of things around the house (appliances were nowhere nearly as good as today, and many did not even exist), or going to work to support the family.
But now, our standard(s) of living are so high and we are so spoiled...........I don't know, I liken it to a plant which is watered too much. It may seem a good thing at first (all plants need water after all), but we as a society are slowly but surely rotting away.
Our "baby" is 18, and our sons are long since grown and gone. It has been within the last several months that we have - for the first time - subscribed to cable TV. Part of me regrets it, though my wife & daughter love HGTV and I kind of like The History Channel.
I honestly think that kids need to NOT have computer & video games, and cable TV. That way they have to think for themselves, entertain themselves, and (god forbid!) go outside and play!
We're giving kids too much - and it's too much of the wrong stuff.
EXACTLY...
I see a LOT less creativity and imagination coming from successive generations, and I'm hardly surprised, given them growing up with all these video games/etc....they simply didn't NEED to have any of it; it was all laid out on a platter for them. Given that, small wonder the arts are in such a sad state. When we were kids, if you didn't go out back and play (or maybe down to the basement), parents had plenty of household chores just waiting for you. So, with no video games and only 4 TV channels, we went off and just made up games with little to no props of any kind, and happily played for hours on end.
And again, the real tragedy is that it's not their fault. It's the prev generations, if anyone's. But part of it might just be the inevitable downside of increased technology. We as a species are too technically sharp for our own good.
I see a LOT less creativity and imagination coming from successive generations, and I'm hardly surprised, given them growing up with all these video games/etc....they simply didn't NEED to have any of it; it was all laid out on a platter for them. Given that, small wonder the arts are in such a sad state. When we were kids, if you didn't go out back and play (or maybe down to the basement), parents had plenty of household chores just waiting for you. So, with no video games and only 4 TV channels, we went off and just made up games with little to no props of any kind, and happily played for hours on end.
And again, the real tragedy is that it's not their fault. It's the prev generations, if anyone's. But part of it might just be the inevitable downside of increased technology. We as a species are too technically sharp for our own good.
You had 4 TV channels? Dang!
Honestly, I think some parents use TV & computers as a substitute for being parents.
Not so. Kids today are a great deal more createive and imaginative than they ever were before, and learn faster.
My wife is a videographer, and does a lot of volunteer work in kids workshops. She is absolutely staggered by how quickly they master not just the technical concepts of the tools, but their capacity and enthusiasm to form creative ideas about what can be done with the tools, which is virtually unlimited, and their minds are expanding to fill that space.
What kids are doing now enables creativity. It fosters boredom, which compels creativity.
A teenager with a $3,000 videocam and Final Cut Pro in his laptop can produce a full-length motion picture that contains every technical specification that is in the movies that win Oscars---and they ARE doing it.
A very high proportion of all the creative material you see around you, is created by people who graduated from college in the 2000s. Advertising, creative design, film, literature, nusic, engineering, fashion . .
You might not like what they are creating, it might not appeal to you, but they are doing it.
What kids are doing now enables creativity. It fosters boredom, which compels creativity.
A teenager with a $3,000 videocam and Final Cut Pro in his laptop can produce a full-length motion picture that contains every technical specification that is in the movies that win Oscars---and they ARE doing it.
Yes but those same kids never heard of a screwdriver, a paintbrush or know how to put air in a car tire, much less change a car tire.
Where we would barely have thought about going 100 miles off to college, they are back packing Europe & Australia. Where we were outside playing ball they are inside editing full length movies.
Things are different, some good and some bad. Being in the house business, it really surprises me how little young people know about home maintenance & repairs.
I'm a bit dumbfounded to discover just how protected many teens are from life, especially those who are brought up in religious families. When I was growing up, I had a rifle at age ten, a two mile paper route as a teenager, a drivers license at age sixteen, was able to easily get a drink at age seventeen (legally at eighteen), was primarily living on my own by age eighteen and fully self-supporting soon after.
By eighth grade we had been taught both local and national history, had math and English training that was better than 90% of graduating seniors in today's schools, and phys-ed was less of a challenge than the normal chore duties of the week.
We knew how to separate fantasy from reality, we knew exactly where milk and meat came from, we worked in gardens enough to know the basics of growing food, we helped in canning and preserving, and if push came to shove, just about any of my high-school classmates could have made it on their own by 10th grade at the latest.
I'm now seeing kids of seventeen and older that have had less life experience and exposure to different facets of life than I had at age nine. I know of kids in the south that freak-out if they get a glimpse of the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" movie. I know of kids that cannot determine if a book is fiction or non-fiction. In Florida, I ran across hundreds of kids who couldn't even fill out a job application. Conversely, the work that the educated kids are being guided into is often highly specialized and requiring extensive specialized education that has no "carry-over" to other occupations and will likely be past technology by the time they are in their thirties.
I can't help but think that we are setting up kids for failure.
Comments?
I think I can tackle this again.
Depends on the population. We have a large group of kids that have never been allowed to make their own decisions. These decisions are made by the courts. They have no control of the tv or snacks or food or clothing or medication. They are not allowed to work. This is controlled by the state. These kids may have what constitutes independent living programs but they are not good enough. When they turn 18 they are then pushed out into society and they wind up on the streets. When they turn 18 they run like hell because they can't wait to get away from the state. They have no clue how to manage life because they have had no control of their lives. We need to go in and figure out what exactly are they teaching in those independent living programs and develop a stronger criteria. That right there is setting them up for failure.
We have an entirely different population where we have kids that are eating supreme court cases by the time they hit fourth grade and in some places by the second grade. They don't get home until 4pm after school, providing they are not shifted into whatever after school program they are in. I call this the "should do" group. They are, and the parents are, literally killing themselves because of what they "should do". They should do extracurricular activities to get into college and they should do the community service requirements to graduate. Only to have some other smiling expert on the 6:00 news say that the kids are overextended and there is something else that the kids and parents "should do". They do and they do and they do and then the rules change and someone says, "you did it all wrong." That right there is setting them up for failure.
Not so. Kids today are a great deal more createive and imaginative than they ever were before, and learn faster.
My wife is a videographer, and does a lot of volunteer work in kids workshops. She is absolutely staggered by how quickly they master not just the technical concepts of the tools, but their capacity and enthusiasm to form creative ideas about what can be done with the tools, which is virtually unlimited, and their minds are expanding to fill that space.
What kids are doing now enables creativity. It fosters boredom, which compels creativity.
A teenager with a $3,000 videocam and Final Cut Pro in his laptop can produce a full-length motion picture that contains every technical specification that is in the movies that win Oscars---and they ARE doing it.
A very high proportion of all the creative material you see around you, is created by people who graduated from college in the 2000s. Advertising, creative design, film, literature, nusic, engineering, fashion . .
You might not like what they are creating, it might not appeal to you, but they are doing it.
And they can't count back your change at the McDonald's counter.
Yeah, they're geniuses.
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So, with no video games and only 4 TV channels, we went off and just made up games with little to no props of any kind, and happily played for hours on end.
