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A couple of days ago, a millenial, decently dressed, asked me for five bucks to fuel his car ... "so he could get home". This in rural community of 4,000, four miles from a college-centered community.
The detachment from economic reality gets crazier every day!
“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”
This feeling is nothing new and is actually just a function of getting older.
I'm siding with the Original Poster on this one. I do think children are growing up more self-absorbed. But I've noticed this in young adults as well.
I'm siding with the OP to the extent that the observations about the kids in question are accurate.
What I'm not sure of is whether the trend is towards more self-absorption or not. In general young people tend to be self-absorbed and full of hubris and that has been true since time immemorial. What I think happens is the intersection of two trends.
One, each generation finds new and creative ways to be self-absorbed.
Two, the older generation tends to mature or have it beaten out of them by life and by the time they have kids of That Certain Age, they forget what it was like. Also, parents tend to discount the fact that their children may be entirely different personality types from their parents.
I have a stepdaughter who I at times regard as the Stepdaughter From Hell, she can be incredibly dismissive, toxic and cruel, seemingly more to her parents and brother than to her friends that she runs in packs with. I'm tempted to say I was NEVER like that. In a sense that's true, I was an easy, compliant child and 98% of what my stepdaughter does would never even enter into my mind, even back in the day. And yet, in my own way, I was self absorbed -- life was all about me -- and full of hubris -- I just didn't direct it at my parents. I made stupid life choices for myself instead. In fact as a devoted evangelical at the time I simply embraced my parent's hubris to a large extent; it would have been better if I HAD rebelled.
My stepdaughter also acts out in seemingly alien ways in part because she's an extreme extrovert, while her mother and I are fairly strong introverts. It's a reason, not an excuse, for her behavior. I am 85% sure she will grow out of it and in fact already is beginning to; we just took her along on vacation with us against our better judgment and while she had her moments, she was clearly making an effort and did about 200% better than the last time we traveled together.
Every generation thinks the Good Old Days ends with them. I don't see any evidence that this is any truer with the current generation than with any other. To the extent there IS a trend toward selfishness, it most likely just represents a multigenerational ebb and flow.
You had one bad experience with a rude kid/parent and you believe it is indicative of an entire generation.
Nice.
You are accusing this person of broadbrushing.
Nice.
I am a bit skeptical of people who bristle at any observation of parenting or lack thereof.
To the OP, yes, it is very common these days. The parents are afraid of being the bad guy. Indulgence is their motto, as if that will make their children truly happy.
I really don't understand why they are so fearful of their children rejecting them.
This isn't "entitlement" behavior. It's rude behavior. People are throwing around the word entitled way too much these days. And you ran into two kids, not the entire generation.
This goes back to bad parenting. There is a lot of it out there too. Not all parents are lax; some parents do a very good job of instilling values, ethics and manners but for every good set of parents there are probably 5 more who ignore the bad behavior of their kids. I don't mind unruly kids if the parent is trying to address the behavior but often the parent turns a blind eye to it, basically saying to you, deal with it.
Not all parents are lax; some parents do a very good job of instilling values, ethics and manners but for every good set of parents there are probably 5 more who ignore the bad behavior of their kids. I don't mind unruly kids if the parent is trying to address the behavior but often the parent turns a blind eye to it, basically saying to you, deal with it.
Although some people never understood up front the hard work and effort that goes into parenting, and just find it too much trouble, I have also learned not to judge people by their children. As children get older, I consider them increasingly responsible for their own actions in life, and also, less and less (shall we say) "quashable", particularly once they figure out that they can play the abuse card and get their parents in social and perhaps legal trouble. Once kids hit middle school age, if not sooner, they are more influenced by their peers than by their parents, and there isn't all that much that parents can do about it shy of home schooling them in some kind of self-created ghetto -- which they will just resent anyway; that's just kicking the can down the road.
One of the most-overlooked factors in child development is the sometimes toxic combination of peer pressure, pop culture and the school system. Parents have their kids for a couple of hours each evening, when the parents are themselves exhausted from a hard day's work; children in advanced placement high school courses will just spend all that time frantically studying anyway. Then there is the weekends, except that the school encourages them to sign up for all sorts of extracurricular activities ranging from sports to debate team to charitable efforts. Not all of which is bad, and some of which parents can participate in (or be swept along by) but it runs everyone ragged and I don't see that it leaves much time for actual family life in the sense that, say, my parents envisioned it. Gone are the days when we all eagerly settled in around the dinner table and then the radio or TV and gave some importance to shared experiences and those quaint old board games we used to play together.
Then of course there is the competition for parental influence from the ever-present iPods and earbuds, the Internet, TV, game consoles and movies. Frankly parents are no competition for ANY of this.
I am not suggesting that parents have no responsibility or culpability or indeed no power, but that if you think you're in control of your life and your kids and your parenting experience with minimal effort, you have another thing coming.
I read this behavior as entitled since it was the public sidewalk. My mom basically considered anywhere not on our block or home public space and not play land so it wouldn't even occur to me tag was an option. My adult read is that these kids felt like it was there space to play And not a space for everyone.
I am on my phone, please forgive the typos.
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