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We tend to forget about stuff that happened a long time ago and focus on recent stuff. And we tend to forget about people (whether children or not) who are behaving decently and focus on the opposite ones. If we encounter, say 100 drivers during our commute home and one single driver cuts us off, whom will we remember? We may remember how "drivers nowadays just cut other drivers off".
So it is difficult to make generalized judgments, as we live in one neighborhood and there are hundreds of thousands of neighborhoods in the United States.
I have a story to tell, but I'm not sure how rare it is. I know it's not entirely typical, but it is one reality. I am 69 and I volunteer in a public school system by reading aloud to some fifth grade classes for 30 minutes once per week (per class). A little over a year ago I started at a new (that is, "new" to me) elementary school in an upper middle class neighborhood. Now one year later I can say that group (four classes) was the nicest and most impressive group of young people I have yet encountered in my long life. They were bright, courteous, respectful, enthusiastic, and delightful to be around. It was just absolutely remarkable.
A small, isolated island? Perhaps. But it reminds me to be wary of all generalizations.
jade408, I looked in the Urban Dictionary to see how they define entitlement (keep scrolling down to read all of them) and I don't see any that apply to your example of the next gen. If you were going to add a definition, which anyone can btw, what would you say?
Called "bad home training" and "bad parenting". Been going on since the dawn of man.
I do notice kids running over their parents a lot more in this society though. It's even being promoted in popular culture.
Awhile ago someone posted something about a new parenting style promoted by some parenting book that came out years ago, and it's all about treating your small child like an adult, letting them make their own decisions, or something, letting them address the parents and other adults by their first name, and generally behave like little kings and queens. I can't recall anything more specific, but some parents will defend this oddball parenting advice as if it were God's Truth aimed at saving their kids' precious egos. Sure would like to know who the idiot was who wrote that book.
jade408, I looked in the Urban Dictionary to see how they define entitlement (keep scrolling down to read all of them) and I don't see any that apply to your example of the next gen. If you were going to add a definition, which anyone can btw, what would you say?
These kids got to run amok and treat the public sidewalk as their play zone. Give it a few years and they are going to start complaining when they have to compromise at work and they start a job that has the nerve not to have free snacks and lunch like on Silicon Valley. And their gym reimbursement doesn't cover their favorite Spin class.
Awhile ago someone posted something about a new parenting style promoted by some parenting book that came out years ago, and it's all about treating your small child like an adult, letting them make their own decisions, or something, letting them address the parents and other adults by their first name, and generally behave like little kings and queens. I can't recall anything more specific, but some parents will defend this oddball parenting advice as if it were God's Truth aimed at saving their kids' precious egos. Sure would like to know who the idiot was who wrote that book.
The popularity of such a thing would be based on how it makes parenting easier ... by pretty much eliminating parenting.
The popularity of such a thing would be based on how it makes parenting easier ... by pretty much eliminating parenting.
It's downright embarrassing. The book seems to have come out in time for boomers having kids later in life to buy it and follow it. I've seen parents that age scurrying around like scolded servants to respond to their child's demands. My boss brought his 5 or 6-yr-old to work once, because he was on child-care duty that day (?!), and the little kid would shout orders at him: "DAVID! I'm bored! I want something to play with!", or whatever. And his dad would respond along the lines of "Yes, yes, I'll take care of it in a minute--I'm just finishing up some work..."
I've seen similar scenes play out in other people's homes; parents in their mid-40's scurrying around to orders barked by their 6-yr-olds. It's bizarre. Kind of disturbing, really.
It's downright embarrassing. The book seems to have come out in time for boomers having kids later in life to buy it and follow it. I've seen parents that age scurrying around like scolded servants to respond to their child's demands. My boss brought his 5 or 6-yr-old to work once, because he was on child-care duty that day (?!), and the little kid would shout orders at him: "DAVID! I'm bored! I want something to play with!", or whatever. And his dad would respond along the lines of "Yes, yes, I'll take care of it in a minute--I'm just finishing up some work..."
I've seen similar scenes play out in other people's homes; parents in their mid-40's scurrying around to orders barked by their 6-yr-olds. It's bizarre. Kind of disturbing, really.
In times past, at least parents semi-concealed it. Back in the late 1990s I worked in an office for awhile where there was a clerk who spent most of the day calling or being called by her latch key children, bellowing things like "Billy Bob! Don't you hit Michael! No, that's his toy! You just wait till your Daddy gets home! I don't want to say it again! PUT IT DOWN!"
At least she was making a PRETENSE of controlling her children.
In fairness there is something about Millennials and how they relate to each other and to authority that enables and emboldens kids with certain personalities or leanings. If they are just a little Borderline, or a little sociopathic (and what teen isn't a little of both during puberty anyway) it amplifies it like a megaphone. I don't necessarily lay that at parent's feet. If your child is assertive and you're not, and they start defying you because (they claim that) all their friends get away with it ... or they demand a free car at 16 because "all" their friends have one ... it is not likely because you set the wrong expectations or boundaries as a parent, it is because they feel justified in / entitled to be violating those boundaries. And let's face it, given where / with whom they spend the lion's share of their waking hours (hint: it's not at home), they are far more concerned with impressing and saving face with and gaining advantage over their "friends" than their "family". In fact they rob one to invest in the other.
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