We’re raising a generation of overly sensitive, sniveling, weak kneed, spineless, lazy children. We’ve exchanged the virtues of honor, discipline, fortitude, service, bravery, and loyalty with fun, excitement, whim, laziness, selfishness, and non-commitment.
By WE, I mean ME. By WE, I mean probably YOU too. And by WE, I mean US as a society.
If it’s not ‘fun’, they don’t want to do it.
I’ll let you in on a little secret, we will never be ‘fun’ enough. Eventually everything loses the excitement of newness.
We can hire a team of gypsy acrobats who use strobe lights and the latest in multi-media technology, and after five minutes, our kids will look at us and ask to leave because they suddenly got bored.
Hello children!
We do things because we made commitments, because it’s necessary, because we have responsibilities. Whether you like it or not, you will one day have a job, fix the car, help your kids with their homework, and repair the leaky toilet, not necessarily because it’s fun, but because that’s what responsible people do. It’s called life.
Spoiler Alert: We don’t live life because it’s FUN.
If we have fun, and we will, it’s a bonus! Thank God for it.
Our kids can’t stand to hear they are wrong. They are crushed if someone insults them, and heaven forbid we don’t drop everything and run to entertain them every time they need cheering.
What’s going to happen to these kids when they turn twenty-one and we kick them out of the house to fend for themselves?
Oh, that’s right, we don’t do that anymore. We keep right on washing their clothes, paying their car insurance, and writing their college papers. They couldn’t make it if we didn’t.
It’s time to make our kids stand up straight on their own two feet. If we don’t teach them to be responsible contributors to society, no one will. It’s time for our kids to grow a backbone and learn to stand up for themselves, to let insults roll off their little backs. It’s time to be a man or woman. It’s time to join the Army!
Just kidding about the army, but it probably wouldn’t hurt for our kids to get a good dose of military school.
After all, they are our future.
Scary, huh?
Forgive me for my little rant, but I’ve had it. So I gave it to you.
Word.
I always told them: The easier you are on yourself now, the harder your life will be later; the harder you are on yourself now, the easier your life will be later.
So far they are all out there on their own. All responsible, all gainfully employed and/or married to people who are gainfully employed, except for the youngest who is in college full-time. We see them socially several times a month.
They ask for very little, maybe because we did very little for them when they were growing up.
I have truly come to believe, based on a lifetime of observation, that the more you do for your kids (or anyone else for that matter) the more they expect and the less they appreciate. Sad commentary on human nature, huh?
I hear the Hallelujah Choir on this post! I tell my kids that my job is to make sure they turn into good grownups. What does that mean in my house? That 10-year-olds do their own laundry and I don’t hold your hand on homework after 5th grade. It only gets harder from here.
I have been trying to work myself out of a job, but I think I need a better exit strategy!
LOL. I loved the rant. This is a conversation that the hubby and I have a few times over the last year. We saw a COPS episode last night that was an oldie but goodie where the officer told the grandma she needed to woop the grandson’s ass. Those were the good old days.
Preach it sista!
Dead on.
Uh….we really were thinking about the same things yesterday! Well, you know I agree 100%! LOL nice post.
Thank you for telling the truth! I tweeted your post, hoping that others will read it too.
AMEN!!
Unfortunately your target audience is not reading. They are off smothering their children and ruining them with praise and rewards for being alive.
That is telling it like it is! Great post!
i totally agree – my moto: work hard, play hard: in that order…then i tell the kids: we can try to seek the fun in what we’re doing, but somethings just aren’t fun…
Preaching to the choir! All I can add is: AMEN!
Rant on FringeGirl!
Truer words were never spoken, er written.
Bill Gates had pretty much the same thing to say to a group of students and you both are dead on. There has been recent press on severe depression in first year university students who have never been away from home and who have lived coddled protected lives so they simply cannot cope. How did we get so far off track? AND are there solutions for fixing this? No, I mean WHAT are the solutions?
That was a good rant.
Yes, it was.