Kids these days

In My Humble Opinion
1

A post, by Choti, in the “would you date a single parent” thread http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=5806401#post5806401 go me thinking. Basically, a mom of four described how most people seem to treat kids as more of a nuisance than anything else. I’ve noticed the same thing, even of some parents. I’ve also noticed what poor physical conditions our (CO, US) schools are in. Despite the emphasis in the news on how little senior citizens are valued in the US, it seems to me that kids really get the shaft, especially teenagers. (I’m personally tired of seniors whining about school taxes in our area, which aren’t a tenth of what I pay in Social Security and Medicaid.)

I’d like to know if US dopers feel like we value our kids. I’m not so sure. (I’m counting anyone under 21 as a kid.)

2

I don’t have kids, but it seems to me is America is judged by standard upheld by Jean-Luc Picard (our society will be judged by how we treat the weakest members) we’re going to fail miserably. I don’t really have a cite for this, just a feeling that anybody in America who isn’t an active, health-insured, wage-earner is getting the shaft.

3

I’m 18.

Yes, us ‘kids these days’ aren’t the golden, wonderful, respectful, loving kids that I’m sure you all were when you were our age (and walked uphill in the snow both ways to school, and were glad to do it). :rolleyes: We’re not all godless heathens, though, and we’re living in a totally different world than you guys grew up in.

We’re expected to act the same as previous generations did. Previous generatiions didn’t have zero-tolerance policies leading to kids being suspended for having a plastic knife or nail clippers. They didn’t have mass, public panic of child molesters, kidnappers, terrorist bombings, anthrax, hijacked planes, asbestos, and god knows whatever other things the talking heads on the nightly news tell you to be afraid of. Many of the older generations weren’t expected to hold down a fast-food job during high school: that’s the norm now, and we’re spoiled if we don’t. If we do, we’re not dedicating enough time to schoolwork. We’re supposed to play with our friends outside, rather than stay inside on the computer, but we’re not allowed to leave the yard or be out after dark because there’s a .0000001% chance that gasp ‘something’ might happen. In short: “Act the same as we did, as we give you contradictory messages on just about everything and understand nothing.” :rolleyes:

sorry, this is a sort of touchy topic, in case you couldn’t tell…

4

Ninjachick, I think the OP was going in a different direction with this- not bemoaning the lack of respect and values of today’s kids. In fact, I believe he was lamenting the lack of care for children today- how most people regard other people’s children, and sometimes even their own, as mere nuisances.

I personally think kids today have it as good as they ever did. Schools, parenting styles, personal comforts and tremendously have all gained tremendously just from my generation to the next, and I’m only 36. Also, I was abused as a child and came to school with bruises, beltmarks, and fat lips and not a word was ever said. Today if I laid a hand on any of my kids, I’d fully expect a visit from CPS the next day.
I do believe kids are growing up much faster than previously, and I’m not sure I like that so much.

5

I’m not sure anything can be done about that, though, as I think it’s a function of the almost ubiquitous presence and tsunami-like rate-of-flow of information in modern society. You can’t escape it unless you pull a Kaczinsky and hide out in the woods in a shack. The best thing parents can do is to teach their children how to handle that much information. Unfortunately, parents have no more idea, if not less of an idea, how to do that than the kids do.

I’m the last person to say that Alvin Toffler was a bona-fide prophet, but he was right about a lot of things. We’re in transition right now, as a society, between second wave and third wave civilization. Transitions are always chaotic, and often look to the people living through them like “the end of the world”. The survival techniques that today’s kids develop to deal with that information fire-hose are going to become the platform for the next level, the same way that the survival techniques society developed at the onset of the Industrial Revolution became the platform for our level.

6

Thank you trublmakr, that was indeed the point I was trying to make. It seems to me that kids are less valued now than at any point since WWII.

Ninjachick, if it helps any, my generation received much of the same type of crap, if different in the specifics. (I am 43.) Last I checked, the homicide rate for teenagers was higher when I was a kid, drug use, according to the surveys was waaay higher (like over 90% of teenagers in the NE were supposed to have used pot), everybody I knew had jobs, until a nasty recession hit that prevented any of us from finding jobs.

7

No, Americans do not value their kids.

Do they love them? Yes. But with the high cost of living, taxes, and the desire to give their kids a better life than they had, Americans are trapped in a two income lifestyle that forces them to spend more time working and less time throwing the ball around in the yard. Some of these families are forced to have 2 incomes, no doubt. Others probably could cut down to one (or one and a half), but THINK they can’t. And then, of course, there are some parents that simply won’t do it, although I think they’re in the minority.

There is nothing in our society that encourages families to hang out together: we’re too busy with extracurricular activities. Most movies aren’t fit for even adults to see these days: a movie you can take your kids to see comes along about once or twice a year, tops. Checked out the price of bowling lately? Yikes! The TV certainly isn’t encouraging us to have good family lives: most of the families we see spend the entire show cutting each other down.

Only the extremely creative manage to find that balance between work and family: and IME, they’re also people who have chosen to drive old cars, not build the house in the brand new subdivision, etc. They sacrifice a lot to make it work.

The Mormons have definitely got one thing right that I think all families, not just religious ones, should model: turn off the damn TV for one night a week and hang out with each other. Play games. Talk, interact, DO something together besides staring at the idiot box. They are all about valuing the kids, not valuing the hottest toy.

And then we’ve got people who have the nerve to look their noses down at families like that.

It’s not about the things that kids have today compared to what my grandmother’s generation had: if it were, today’s kids would win hands down. My grandmother may not have had a lot of material things, but she actually knew her parents and they were there, ya know? The average kid spends what? Twenty minutes a day talking to Mom? We’ve got millions of kids coming home to an empty house after school and even more stuck in daycare. Few kids actually get to be kids anymore: either the TV or situations they see in real life force them to learn about the bad things in life too soon. And staying together for the kids until they’re out of the house? Hah. It’s all about Mom and Dad’s happiness. (I am NOT talking about abusive situations here where divorce is necessary, so don’t start.)

It’s not that American parents are suddenly worse. They are, however, more distracted, and are living in a society that makes it very hard to get un-distracted.

8

Thank you, SlowMindThinking, for getting my name almost right. :wink: Most people spell it ‘chotti’ and that feels like Gotti somehow. :smiley: It’s actually a plural. No. Don’t ask.

It’s just…

<long incoherent ramble but hopefully not a hijack>

Look, I take my kids to the post office, and let them go in and mail the book I’ve sold on half.com - they fight over who gets to go in and mail it. And they’ll go in and stand very patiently in what may be very long lines, or carry on courteous conversations with folks in line who are surprised to see a small child mailing a package. People are startled, I think, to find articulate, polite children loose in public during the day. Augh!

We go to the grocery store. If it’s a small purchase, I let them do it. Why not? Social interactions and social transactions are part of socialization, and in my mind, the ability to speak politely and to complete everyday transactions with people of every age, is more effective socialization than the ability to go through days and weeks and years segregated among 30 kids your own age. But people overlook them. They assume - that child must be with some adult. They’ll be rude sometimes and deliberately overlook them, simply for being children, despite the fact there’s a package and money in their hands. I have to tell my kids, "Look. Speak up, say “EXCUSE ME, MA’AM” and when they look at you, say “I want to mail this, book rate please.” Or even “I want to give you money. It’s my turn.”

I never see my neighbor kids. Why? Because they’re all in school all day. And when they aren’t - in the summer, for example - they’re all in summer camp because their parents work, or they flat out won’t play with my kids because they’re not in the same grade, or they don’t go to their school, or some other stupidity. Or they’re inside the house, playing computer games. I’ve got a neighborhood full of children I never see. My children never see.

Well, no wonder I feel so weird, out at the grocery store in the middle of the day with my little flock of kids. People aren’t used to seeing children. Aren’t they supposed to be, you know, in school? Where they can be turned into productive members of society? (Except their very segregation from society, it seems to me, means that when they’re suddenly turned loose (when they get cars, or graduate,) they’re at a societal disadvantage.) I seem to remember having a very hard time adjusting to the idea of being grown up, or even being acknowledged as anything but a kid, after graduating. It was like one day I was granted adult status, and all I’d done to earn it was survive 12 years of school. I had a great deal of difficulty shifting from ‘all adults are authority figures who must be listened to in silence’ to ‘you are now an adult, a peer’. Heck. Some days I still don’t feel like I’ve made that shift entirely, especially when I meet someone of my parents’ generation.

I really do think that American society in general wants nothing to do with children, because children are inconvenient to the lives of adults. So you get women who talk about “getting their lives back” after baby is born - sometimes before baby is even born, and you have babies in daycare from a few weeks old, kids in preschool from the age of 2 or 3, then on to regular school, and it all seems rather geared toward making sure that kids are turned into useful citizens, with as little inconvenience to society as possible.

So then, when my kids do appear in public, I catch myself being careful to make them as unobtrusive and un…well…childlike as possible, for fear they’ll annoy or inconvenience somebody. And while part of me sees how unfair that is, I’m also not sure what to do about it. Because after all, lots of people do really despise children - my own sister in law ranted at me about how children are to be seen and not heard. (Then she invited me out to go bar-hopping with her. I politely declined. Lifestyle incompatibility.)

I don’t want my kids to grow up ashamed of being children. But that seems to be the message out there, right down to the kiddie-slut clothes which is about all you can get at the less expensive stores. Grow up! Try to look 16 even though you’re only 6! Grrr.

</ramble>

9

I value and love my little girl. Her daddy stays home and takes care of her during the day, and we are planning to home school because the schools here are going bankrupt. We are teaching her manners and how to recognize colors, animals, numbers and letters. We spend hours each day reading to her. I alwasy vote for library and school referendums.

10

Hi Chotiiiiiiiiiiiii! Sorry, for treating you in the singular. Note, that is a plural “you”. :stuck_out_tongue:

I talked with a friend at the gym this morning. He is thinking about quitting his job and becoming a teacher - overseas. (He always wanted kids, but he and his wife were unable to have them.) He didn’t know the source, but said he read a survey of what people valued most in their lives. Their car came in number 2. The kids came in 6th or 7th. It even makes sense whey you think about it. We display our values by where we spend our time. And most Americans spend more time in their car than with their kids.

I’ve also noticed that parent’s don’t play with their kids much. Moms seem to play with them when they are preschool age. Dad’s just a bit when they are older. When I go to the park and toss a ball around with my kids, which isn’t nearly often enough, I am almost always the only dad there. Once, my boys played football with another dad. Just once, over a period of 10 years. Skiing is a little different. It is much more common to see kids ski (or board) with their parents.

Still, there haven’t been many replies to this thread, and NinjaChick was the only teenager, so maybe it is just a few of us that are overly sensitive.

11

Chotii, that was a lovely post.

I also consider my kids to be actual people, but so many others seem to regard them as a nuisance. I get looks of pity when I’m in the grocery store with my three-year-old and my infant, as if people want to say, “Oh, I’m so sorry you have this burden.” Huh? They’re my kids, and they’re fun little people!

Sure, they can be a little trying at times, but who isn’t? I have my bad days, and so do my kids. Raising them and caring for them is my priority right now, and I don’t feel that I’ve “given up” anything to do so. My career was just that for so many years, and now loving and nurturing these two boys is my career.

I also have two teenaged step-daughters, and when I tell people that, I get another of those pitying looks, and some response like, “You poor thing. Teenagers.” Excuse me? They’re bright, lively girls. They make me feel 10 years younger just being around them. They shake up my world enough to jolt me out of my boring routine, and they remind me how much excitement one can find in life, when you’re 16 and your whole life is still ahead of you. It’s a shame we seem to lose that enthusiasm as we get older.