The "You are Special/Great" Generation

I have to agree, i dont think everyone showing up should qualify you for a metal or ribbon,
kids need to learn if they dont get off their butts and put some effort behind it, they are
going to fail.

And i think that is the main thing that is being missed in the way they do things now days.
They are not taught if you work hard and practice you can win, but if you dont you will loose
they are being taught , ahh play video games and show up and we'll give you a winning ribbon.

BTW what is it with the younger generations, seems like they are not growing up, not all mind you
but enough to make you scared of the future. you see 30 and 20 year old's hiding out at home
so engrossed into video games and pokemon or what ever that is and missing out on what life really
offers. I can name several 'adults' that i know of that still buy buttloads of comic books every week and
spend all their money on video games, dont get me wrong there is nothing wrong with a little fun, but there
is a difference between fun and addicted.

Sadly i think our future is going to be a rocky one because those are the ones that are going to be in charge
when we are old and gray.

Sorry, anything else is massive abuse and they need more self esteem and more love and compassion modeled, because the biggest problem I see is poverty, city ghetto's, inequality and alot of violent movies, and heartless world instead of abundance, and equality. Eveyrone is very very special and every child counts more than the whole universe a trillion times over.

Originally posted by jiggerj
reply to post by Epirus

 

Good post, but what is the answer? If we aren't pandering to all the little darlin's (Ick!) then the flip side is to raise them with the idea that life is a matter of swim or drown, do or die, and that in the game of life there are only winners and losers.

Originally posted by beezzer
reply to post by jiggerj

 

Then it is up to the parent to develop character so that quitting is not an option. Everyone suffers defeat at some time in their life. How you deal with it defines you.

How you are raised will deterine how someone deals with defeat.

Excellently explained.

reply to post by jiggerj


I see the answer as this:

To a large degree, parents in our society have checked out. Work demands are insane - and then we all need our "me" time... it's getting so that being an attentive parent is a very difficult prospect.

But if we actually force ourselves to make time we can find out what areas are kids are gifted in and then take it upon ourselves to provide them with enlightenment and guidance. We rely too heavily upon schools to tell us our own kids strengths and weaknesses... and schools these days are just too crowded and hectic for teachers to apply that sort of individual attention.

Just listen to your kids... see what interests them and what they are good at and then support it. Problem solved.

~Heff

Originally posted by Hefficide
reply to post by jiggerj

 

I see the answer as this:

To a large degree, parents in our society have checked out. Work demands are insane - and then we all need our "me" time... it's getting so that being an attentive parent is a very difficult prospect.

Congrats, you identified an *actual* factor in the issue. Now you guys are getting somewhere.

Originally posted by watchitburn
We got blue, red, and yellow ribbons. Yeah I agree though it has gotten absurd.

But, I think the problem escalated out of control when they started cracking down on bullies.

Nothing put a kid in his place and showed him how the world worked like some good old fashioned bullying.

You can thank the school massacre kids for that. Believe me, no one wanted to bother with bullies until the bullied kids started showing up with hardware and a little bullying of their own on their minds. But then, that's what bullying, and unrestricted competition looks like in the real world. Sooner or later it ends up with war - or at least death inflicted on the loser by the winner. It's been that way since Cain butchered Able.

You middle age armchair commandos are all the same. I get the emails about how "we didn't need bike helmets, or seatbelts, or DSS reps investigating when our parents spin-fractured our arms, and we turned out just fine", and to tell you the truth, most of us didn't turn out just fine. I'm 56 yrs old, and most of the people of my generation are selfish *ssholes. Not only that, but they celebrate being *ssholes, and worship the biggest *ssholes in our society - and always have.

We're the generation that invented derivatives gambling (with other people's money), and then we invented government bailouts when we lost our shirts and everyone else's shirts. We're the generation that took the music business and made it so toxic that our kids were forced to completely destroy it to the point where no one's music makes any money unless it's used to sell iPods or cars or clothes on TV. We're the generation that coined the phrase "Greed is Good" and elevated that sick animal Ayn Rand to the level of "philosopher" instead of allowing her shriveled husk to dust away as the bitter crank she was and should've remained forever. We're the generation that confirmed the worst assumptions about how ugly Americans can be, and shoved that realization right back into the faces of the rest of the world, as if it's something to be proud of.

But, to be fair, it's not our fault. Then again, nothing has ever been our fault. Hell, we have no faults, but I digress. Our parents were the psychotic generation that invented carpet bombing of civilian targets, and saw the Nazi atrocities as inspiration in that regard, instead of recoiling in horror at this new level of barbarism in war. Hell, they dropped the first two (as if one didn't make the point already) atomic bombs on civilian targets, instead of dragging cameras and witnesses out to watch one of those bombs obliterate a nearby island, with the promise of a follow-up strike if Japan didn't wise-up and lay down their arms. And then, they celebrated that insane war crime, and most did so to their graves. With parents like that, how the hell were we supposed to turn out any better? The bitch is that most of us didn't, and as our bodies started failing us, we took their selfishness and the self-centeredness that marketers and media taught us to view as our birthright, and emerged as the most pathetic and self-righteous wave of human being to ever take the helm - and with fairly predictable results.

The entire world's economy is now flat on its back, with most of us blaming the poor for stealing all the money and opportunity that they never had and never will have. We celebrate soulless competitiveness as if gain itself is the gas it takes to drive our souls to heaven, even though every word that can be directly connected to any version of heaven in any manner whatsoever repudiates that sort of avarice as the root of all evil. We've even taken the world's most overwhelming super power and completely crippled its ability to manage the basics of governance, while blaming it all on the only people that have no influence at all on how that government is run.

So, I'm hoping that the kids that are coming up - the ones who are being brainwashed into thinking that they're okay, even if they don't beat out everyone else - will do better than we've done. At the very least, I hope that the rest of the world won't look at them as the selfish jerks that they see when they look at us. Hell, something has to change, or this American experiment is going to fail spectacularly and who knows what'll replace it. Maybe teaching an entire generation to not see winning as everything (or the only thing) will give them a chance to succeed at being human?

In the end, we all lose anyway. No one escapes losing everything in the end.

reply to post by NorEaster


Very well said.
I don't know where exactly it went wrong, I don't have any answers. A lot of people grow up to be rational productive human beings. But it seems to me that many more live in their own little fantasy bubbles. When they don't want to hear something they just ignore it and hope it goes away.

Take me and my brothers for example, we all grew up in the same house with the same opportunities. I have a steady job a nice car and a nice apartment. They are in and out of jail, owe child support for 3 or more kids each, and can't keep a job as a carnie or a 7-11 clerk.

I think most people don't put any thought into the choices they make. Then they are completely baffled when they are faced with the consequences.

reply to post by NorEaster


Good post. Nothing sadder than elders blaming the youth for the world's problems. As I've said on here before, it is the job of parents and elders to raise upstanding children. If the people in this thread insist on pointing blame, don't worry, you won't have to look far nor long.

Can we combine this with the US women princess mentality thread?

It all starts with education. Either you teach Man how to fish or you fish for them.

I would just like to interject with thoughts on those who came from between roughly 45 and 65 years ago.

They grew up in a time when you could go out and get a decent job with just graduating high school, when a college degree meant something and it was actually, reasonably possible to work your way through school. They grew up in a time when working your way up wasn't just garbage fed to you to get your hopes up, most people could actually stay with a company their whole lives, and competence actually meant something.

As for my generation being so coddled, maybe we should look at the other side of the coin: what exactly do the people who coddled us get out of it?

Having the feeling of being decent parents without really doing anything?

Does it fill some emotional void that exists because so many of our parents can't seem to hold relationships together?

When everyone is special, no one is.

Sad but true.

And I think that's the real aim of the movement. I sometimes wonder that this aim is ebcause the previous generation, many of them were taught that they weren't special enough and were taught that they were nobodies who didn't accomplish anything. So now because they can't take it out on the people who taught them that, they have hurt anybody else they can.

I don't know if that's true or not, it's just something I think about sometimes.

Because that's the way of the world. Many people when they get hurt have to lash out and anyone and everything.Unfortunately, this way of thinking never truly solves anything, it just creates more problems in the long run.

And eventually this will only come back to bite people in the arse.