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Since I am a secret television addict (reality tv and talk shows), I have noticed a theme when they have young people on Television.
Young adults saying not doing something "Because they don't want to". I am assuming this comes from a childhood of mommy and daddy saying "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do". I feel that this creates a sense of entitlement and laziness.
When I was growing up if my mom asked me to do something. I did it. I did it with a smile because my mom never made outrageous requests of either of us.
I know that this is a good attitude to have when it comes to drugs, alcohol, and sex but what about basic work. I don't want to do the dishes right now in my apartment but I am. I also don't feel like walking 4 blocks in the oppressive humidity to buy the specific kind of light bulb needed for my bathroom but I am going to do that too.
I say that quite a bit myself. When my girlfriend or family or whatever tries to tell me "Why don't you do such and such?" If its simply because I don't want to, I'll tell them that instead of making up some little white lie. Sure they may not feel as good knowing I don't care for their suggestion, but its the truth.
I think an important message that kids *should* be getting but often aren't is this: Sometimes there are things you just have to do. It's called responsibility. I didn't *want* to get up and go to work this morning, but that's something I have to do (assuming I want to have a car and a home and food to eat). Responsibilities before leisure.
There is a saying in other cultures along the lines of "all roads lead to Rome".
This is yet another road leading to Rome - Rome being the ideological shift in just about everything (parenting included) that happened in the second part of the 20th century.
It was an abrupt, virtually over-night shift in mentalities that claimed to righteously demolish all time-tested, traditional, often universal ways of doing things, only to replace them with a new, brave, "enlightened" way.
And just when we were bracing ourselves to see this wonderful new world we had just created, we realized we produced way more garbage than what we thought we were smelling before the "shift".
Results are now starting to rear their ugly head after a few decades of practicing "enlightenment" driven by various Powers That Be, psycho-experts and their mass propaganda means.
Most people clearly don't like those results at the individual level; however, these same most people consistently fail to draw the connection between that big shift and the individual results they now decry.
The "because I don't want to" is one of the many byproducts of the new parenting ideology that proposed - against the very nature of all things! - that the parent-child relationship should be an inherently democratic one.
Note the "should".
I say that quite a bit myself. When my girlfriend or family or whatever tries to tell me "Why don't you do such and such?" If its simply because I don't want to, I'll tell them that instead of making up some little white lie. Sure they may not feel as good knowing I don't care for their suggestion, but its the truth.
Perhaps sometimes you have to care about other people's suggestions, especially SO-s? And even if "you don't want to", maybe you "should"?
If you won't do anything you don't want to, I suppose girlfriend/family/SO has a right to not do anything they don't want to either.
Good luck with your human relations. You'll need lots.
I think an important message that kids *should* be getting but often aren't is this: Sometimes there are things you just have to do.
Check this out: my 5 yo son in swim class yesterday.
He has to jump off the trampoline but he prefers not to. He is perfectly capable of doing so but he'd rather not deal with the water all over his face, head under water, the overall effort involved.
Son: I don't want to jump off the trampoline.
Teacher: That's OK if you don't want to - and she sends him off, as it was the end of the class.
No persistence, no encouraging to overcome reservation, nothing. Just bending to his will right away because child expressed "discomfort".
I took him back to the teacher and made him jump. He fussed and finally, with fanfare and extra help, he did it - but far from the way he was expected to do it.
At the end, teacher says:
"Great Job, "Johnny"!!!" with the typical "give'em praise regardless" voice.
My son had NOT done a good job. That was clear.
It bothered me, of course. Not that he had not done a great job, but that he had been told so when that was not true.
It was yet another example of low expectations, a lesson in "you don't have to do anything you are not perfectly comfortable doing, nothing that requires an extra push", all garnished with a good dose of undeserved praise.
I told him that if he refuses to jump off the trampoline next time, he will be regressed to the beginner class where very small children scream and yell and where he did not want to be in the first place.
He jumped just fine this time and was almost enjoying it. Had I left it up to the enlightened teacher, he would have still been under the spell of "I don't want to".
Sometimes, dictatorship works, especially in the world of child rearing, which I prefer by a mile to "parenting".
That reminds me of when I was younger I hated to talk on the phone. As a result my mom ALWAYS made me call when we ordered pizza. Looking back it was great because now I can call anyone and have no problem.
Uh yeah my 17 y/o does the "No, because I don't want to" crap on me. My response is "I don't really care because frankly I don't want to do dishes or clean the dirt ring out of the tub or the urine off the toilet, or do laundry, or many of the other things that I just do anyway because a household runs because EVERYONE has things that just have to get done, want to or not."
That reminds me of when I was younger I hated to talk on the phone. As a result my mom ALWAYS made me call when we ordered pizza. Looking back it was great because now I can call anyone and have no problem.
I hate talking on the phone as well.
My mom tries to make me talk on the phone to places, yet I'm stubborn and will just not do it and she ends up calling for me or just calling herself.
I call if I NEED to.
I call work.
I called my college today.
I do it if I NEED to. My mom tries to make me call places even if I don't need to.
She'll want me to call to find directions or find out hours. That's something google can do and I don't have to waste minutes.
She'll want me to call my friends instead of text them to find something out.
She's been trying for years to change me on this... I don't think its ever going to work.
I fall in that generation of "Because I don't want to."
I don't want to clean my room because I don't necessarily need to if I don't want to.
I do the things that are absolutely required of me to do.
Paying for things I buy, going to work, depositing my checks, eating.
Cleaning my room, cleaning in general, attending school not necessarily absolutely required for me to do.
I
I fall in that generation of "Because I don't want to."
I don't want to clean my room because I don't necessarily need to if I don't want to.
Is your room located in your parents' house? If yes, I would so kick you out. You're adorable, you and your "because I don't want to" generation.
But the Powers That Be will take care of things where your parents failed to. Sometimes I get all "bleeding heart" about young people today facing such harsh market realities. But every time I will see one in dire straights, I will pray that the one I am seeing is one of those who actually deserve their fate, even if unrelated to their nasty "me" attitude.
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