When Did We Start Coddling Failures and Stop Celebrating Success?

In the Western World, it used to be that success was celebrated and failure was either ignored completely or we tried to assist people who failed with extra training and other assistance in order to help them succeed the next time. We weren't afraid to tell our kids and community members "sorry, but that's just not good enough to pass".

Now, we coddle failures and individual and team success (with the exception of professional sports) seems to just get a pat on the back and a "well done".

We have grown accostomed to giving kids a trophy just for showing up to a sporting event, we have grown afraid to tell our kids that they failed because "it might hurt their self esteem" and failures in society (such as those unable to pay their mortgages due to financial difficulty) are bailed out while successes (such as those who pay their mortgages on time every month) fail to qualify for any sort of assistance at all.

While I'm all for giving the weakest members of society a helping hand, we in the Western World seem to be coddiling our failures to the point that instead of society being led by the strongest members, with assistance to the failures to allow them to learn to keep up, the strongest members of any community are being held back to the same level as those that are failing because "it's not fair that everyone can't keep up with the overachievers".

Throughout human history, the strong have survived and society has alwys been achieved and led by the strongest members. When did this change in the last 20 years or so?

reply to post by babybunnies


If this was true than unemployment wouldn't be so high, so many people wouldn't have lost their homes, and suicide rates wouldn't be near what they are.

I fail to see how we as a society are coddling anyone.

reply to post by babybunnies


I'd say last 40 years or so. It is the baby-boomer parents raising the Gen X and Gen Y kids. I am 37 years old, and I just made the "old school" cut off. All the kids after me were raised with "positive reinforcement" and "self esteem issues."

When I was a kid, it was not acceptable to be shy. If you had an assignment to do, you got up in front of the class or you failed. A few years later, being "shy" became some kind of disability?

When I was a kid, you took your test, in the allotted time, in the classroom with everyone else, and if you couldn't concentrate, you either learned to overcome it, or you failed. A few years later, ADD came along, and it is supposedly some kind of health problem, and now you get medication, and a private setting, and an extended test-taking allotment?

When I was a kid, there were bullies. You were either a bully, or a victim, or a good kid that stood up to bullies on behalf of the victims. The victims learned to cope through other mechanisms such as humor, or weight-lifting, or karate, or out-witting someone. The bullies learned there were major consequences for being a bully, and the good kids learned that it is self-rewarding to do the right thing. All was right in the natural order of things. A few years later, law enforcement got involved to make bullies into criminals, no matter what age, and the victims became coddled and they never learned any coping mechanisms, and the good kids learned that if you are not a criminal or a victim, the system doesn't care about you, and your life is going to be spent supporting everyone else, by no conscious choice of your own, and with no rewarding qualities or redemptions, just a piece of your soul lost to big government.

Times have changed, and not for the better!

Everyone will say their time was better because of this or that. Every generation loves to go on about how their generation is better, different, or was superior.

We are all humans that happened to be born at a different time. Get over it.

Just like how people cry over violent video games/cartoons. But no one complains over Bugs Bunny being very violent in nature. It's a joke.

reply to post by getreadyalready


I agree with you, except to say, that not all baby-boomer parents are to blame. I am a baby-boomer, but my children were raised the way I was--with discipline. I smacked their bottoms when they needed it because it worked whereas standing them in the corner or trying to explain to them what they were doing wrong achieved absolutely nothing! I did NOT abuse my children-I corrected them.
Parents have lost their right to discipline their kids because now they are labeled either physical or verbal abusers if they try to do so.
And to the OP, yes we are coddling today's kids with all this 'everyone is a winner' crap. Not everyone is a winner in the real world, life is not fair, and the sooner children learn this the better off they are. True competition, with winners AND losers, is what taught my generation to not only strive to be the best but also to realize that not everyone gets to be #1.

Oh, and when did common sense disappear? Probably about the same time the coddling started..

Nana

reply to post by mnmcandiez


To a certain extent you are right, but there is an obvious decline in the country in the areas of education, and productivity, and self-responsibility. Surely you have seen it?

If you haven't seen it your self, a quick perusal of the world economic situation, the US credit rating, the US trade deficit, and the amount of people either incarcerated or on public assistance should help illuminate it for you.

Worse yet, I bet you won't even find a Gen X or a Gen Y that will bother trying to tell you they are the best generation. They even realize their generations are failures!! That is pretty sad.

I think what you describe is often-times referred to as the "wussification" of America.

I played soccer as a child. Each year we had an annual banquet to celebrate the division winners as well as give out INDIVIDUAL awards/trophies - generally 1 for most goals and 1 for MVP. Some kids knew they would get neither and were fine with that. Nowadays they all get a gleaming trophy, a hug and free ice cream - all for showing up.

I guess I could go on a rant now about how this is simply a psych-op for getting them prepared for a life of entitlements and 0 responsibility.

Oh we still celebrate 'success', but only the unearned kind. We have turned into a society that worships fame for the sake of fame.

There is a generation reaching maturity now that has learned their lesson well. Why work hard and study hard when you can simply parade you ignorance on the TV and make fortunes way beyond those working hard.

This is relatively new. There were always 'stars' but it used to be they actually needed to have some form of natural talent or learned ability. These days all you need is a complete lack of shame and self respect.

I think that this "coddling" is a result of research discovering how the Brain works and that many of these learning related disabilities are of no fault of the individual themselves own but are related to the development of the Brain.

They have recently discovered for example, that consumption of alcohol by pregnant mothers diminishes the area of the brain related to math skills.

In the past when those who had difficulty with Algebraic concepts in High School were told that they were stupid and to consider a career as a common laborer.

They are now discovering new ways to overcome these learning disabilities.

On the other hand.

I think that Celebrating success is well established in our society.

Simply look at the minimum test scores entry requirements of the leading Universities.

Where do the Leading Corporations hire graduates from ?

The Leading Universities.

reply to post by babybunnies


I agree with some aspects of your post, but disagree with others. We do often coddle non achievers in terms of sports and recognition. But to say all people that do not have income are underachievers or worthy of life essentials, like shelter, food, and medical care, is stretching the argument too far. If we are talking about government bailouts, I would think that the rich receive more coddling then the person receiving a few hundred dollars a month to stay alive and functioning with the possibility of becoming more productive members of society. I would have rather seen the government buy all the in debt mortgages from Americans and give them a 1% annual interest rate; rather, then giving billions to the bankers who then kick the American out of their home after probably years of paying their mortgage. If anything we coddle the large corporations and financial institutions too much. If we allow liquidation of debt, then other more responsible people will buy the debt at a deal and the economy stabilizes.

As a society, I do agree not everyone should get special achievements and recognition for doing a job they are supposed to do anyway. However, if a person wants to give recognition to others that is their own choice. But as a society, I do agree we should not be worried so much about constantly giving recognition to everyone, and give it to the people that actually move us forward or contribute to all of our better living and life.

As a parent of two very successful kids, I'd have to say that positive reinforcement works better than negative reinforcement.

However, we as a society, need to get back to celebrations of success. But each person views success differently. When you're kids are 5 or 6, yes there should be an end of the season party for all the kids on the team. When your kids are 14-16 they know who the best players are and also know who will get the MVP trophies.

I think that it's time that we as a society need to evaluate our educational system and when kids are in the 10-12th grade, we need to determine who is college bound. Not everyone needs a college prep education. You should have to qualify for this based on grades and test scores. Other kids should have choices of studies that would help them find a job because they aren't going to make it at an academic institution. Then they find themselves with a mountain of debt and that they can't get a job with their BS in social sciences and a 2.5 GPA.

reply to post by babybunnies

Did you ever hear of 50 being the new 30?
Now it's failure being the new "success".
People used to fear failure. It was undesireable. Then came the "feel good" crowd. Under achievers became the norm. Good grades, being successful at your job, making money becme bad. Demonized. If you did well, you obviously cheated or stole or did something wrong.

Work ethics, sweat equity, honesty and dignity have become as common in our current lexicon as latin verb conjugation. (amo, amas, amat)

reply to post by TXRabbit


This a a topic that has been discussed in my home quite often. We call it instilling false self esteem. If only parants could see into the future and understand that society is not going to see 'the magic of their child'. No one will ever worship their children as they do. It is a harsh and competitive world, and these molly coddled kids are in for a rude awakening.

reply to post by daughterofnicholas


100% Agreed.

Not only is the false sense of self-esteem a ticket to disappointment, but also the protection from bullying is a ticket to disappointment or worse.

There are real world bullies, in the office, in the supermarket, in the DMV, or wherever you might go. Back in the day, kids learned how to cope with bullies by whatever natural skills they were blessed with. Nowadays, they never learn those coping mechanisms or techniques, and when they get to the real world, they are even more of a victim than in generations past.

To a certain extent, we no longer allow our kids to "grow up" naturally. Instead, we shelter them, and then throw them into the world unprepared at some arbitrary age, like 18 or 21.

Imagine, the kids that have never been exposed to alcohol, or sex, or guns, or bullies, and then they turn 18, graduate highschool and get sent off to college some place like Florida State here in my town! All of a sudden they are inundated with all of the things they are the most naive about. It is a recipe for major failure! No wonder there is such a drop out rate, and such a problem with date rape and pregnancy and underage drinking!

A parent cannot possibly be a good parent and also follow the law. There is no way I am going to let my kids first alcoholic beverage be at some frat party a 1000 miles away from me. I am going to be forced to break the law, and let the kids learn to be responsible while still at home under my protection.

When I was in high school, a couple of girls got suspended from the basketball team, because of a picture of them with a champagne glasses at one of their mother's weddings. Ridiculous reaction by the school, and the parents and students responded by boycotting the basketball team, and the school until the suspension was lifted, which took about a week.

What a ridiculous sentiment for an "authority" to think they have the right to dictate what happens with our own kids in our own homes? Who has the real authority to raise a child responsibly? Is it the Congress? Or the School Board? Or is it a responsible parent? Surely the law does not want a "molly coddled" and naive kid being tossed out to the wolves on their 18th or 21st birthday? Surely everyone can agree that learning some responsibilities and consequences while still under the care of a parent is tantamount in raising a child?

Originally posted by mnmcandiez
Everyone will say their time was better because of this or that. Every generation loves to go on about how their generation is better, different, or was superior.

We are all humans that happened to be born at a different time. Get over it.

Just like how people cry over violent video games/cartoons. But no one complains over Bugs Bunny being very violent in nature. It's a joke.

From an interesting article, that supports your post. People have been having moral panics about youngsters for centuries.

n London, 1815 sees the foundation of the Society for Investigating the Causes of the Alarming Increase in Juvenile Delinquency in the Metropolis. 1751 sees Henry Fielding's "Enquiry into the Causes of the Late Increase of Robbers" (Fielding fingered "too frequent and expensive diversions among the lower kind of people"). The seventeenth century saw moral panics about violent and rowdy apprentices, as well as about organised fighting among gangs (wearing coloured ribbons to identify their troops). Professor Pearson ends with the sixteenth century and puritan fears about, if not gangsta rap, popular songs that treated criminals as heroes.

www.economist.com...

reply to post by getreadyalready


The decline of education and productivity had nothing to do with the generation that is young now. Whether it was manufactured or just plain happened out of greed you can't blame the kids that have to live through it.

reply to post by woodwardjnr


This is exactly what I'm talking about. Everyone of every generation blaming the EVIL YOUNG PEOPLE!!~!~!~

Nice post

reply to post by mnmcandiez


You are absolutely right. I don't blame the kids, I blame the parents. And, I don't think the parents necessarily did it on purpose, I think they had good intentions. I also blame the legislatures. They are constantly trying to tweek the laws so that there is no decision making, and everything is legislated. It just can't work that way, and parents have to have choices and options in how they raise their children.

I did mention that if you ask a teenager today, it will be very difficult to find one that thinks this is the best generation ever. For all of the "self-esteem building" that has been tried, we are still left with a generation or two of kids that realize they are from a "lost" generation. For me, that is the saddest part. An entire generation with no pride, and they will be left to learn things the hard way, and try to raise their own children better than they were raised.

reply to post by babybunnies

Now, we coddle failures and individual and team success (with the exception of professional sports) seems to just get a pat on the back and a "well done".

I agree and so we need to get all these losers in place. And first we need to get rid of all these whiny rich people who don't do nothing but play scam games all day long. Look at the whole bailout thing, you all rewarded a bunch of losers and look how that turned out. And so all these self entitled spoiled little fools must be put in there place, and that place is on the bottom, till they get a clue.

We don't even have one freaking flying car around, or the technology to even go to teraform mars, and we cant even blow up the moon if we wanted to. WTF kind of # is that, its freaking unacceptable, and anybody who can not achieve that at least needs to go do something else like fish or play bingo, and let those who can do there thing. I mean come on not even one measly moon were capable of blowing up....WTF.

We have grown accostomed to giving kids a trophy just for showing up to a sporting event, we have grown afraid to tell our kids that they failed because "it might hurt their self esteem" and failures in society (such as those unable to pay their mortgages due to financial difficulty) are bailed out while successes (such as those who pay their mortgages on time every month) fail to qualify for any sort of assistance at all.

Ya this bailing out needs to stop, the poor though at least have a good excuse for it, however the rich. Well if your a multi billionaire or a corporation and you need to be bailed out you fail big time. I mean how stupid do you have to be that you fail at a game which is rigged in your favor.

I mean that is like so much fail its just not funny.

The mind boggles at such an ultimate fail, were you fail when all the cards are stacked in your favor. And I think chimps could do better. After all they got sent in space and did alright, so they would of probably done a better job.

While I'm all for giving the weakest members of society a helping hand, we in the Western World seem to be coddiling our failures to the point that instead of society being led by the strongest members, with assistance to the failures to allow them to learn to keep up, the strongest members of any community are being held back to the same level as those that are failing because "it's not fair that everyone can't keep up with the overachievers".

I agree and so I nominate myself ultimate leader of the world. And my cat will be vice president of the world and in charge of all hairball relations and affairs that will be going on in this world.

Throughout human history, the strong have survived and society has alwys been achieved and led by the strongest members. When did this change in the last 20 years or so?

Obviously you don't know much about history. Oh don't believe everything you read in the history books, because its like all pretty much fake. And at best educated queses, but even educated queses are still just queses. Though most is just been written and rewritten as it suits the times. So its all just opinions and opinions are like assholes, everybody is one and has one.

reply to post by getreadyalready

When I was a kid, there were bullies. You were either a bully, or a victim, or a good kid that stood up to bullies on behalf of the victims. The victims learned to cope through other mechanisms such as humor, or weight-lifting, or karate, or out-witting someone. The bullies learned there were major consequences for being a bully, and the good kids learned that it is self-rewarding to do the right thing

Thats cool and all but when I went to school the bullied sometimes waited for you outside when the school was over with guns, and bats and tried to play ball with your head if you were not careful.

So I suppose it all depends on what you consider a bully, however we should not cuddle kids or bullies. Besides the worst was not fights and all that, "Oh noz that was the fun part" the worst is the mindless jabber they all talk and the waste of time on worrying about it when you could be doing something else. Like learning stuff. And the mental anguish it brings dealing with such things. Really I think the name calling gets to more of them then the actual violent confrontations.

The best thing is to channel all that natural aggression and short fuses that kids have by giving them something to do that is not so destructive. So they need more sports like wrestling and soccer in schools to let them have more outlets, and the same thing for females as well.