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Replies to '08/15 Rude and Crude People'
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January 25, 2007, 2:37 pm PST
 Quote From: danajo I see kids becoming more self-centered than ever before. I used to hear about how self-esteem was missing in girls. Now I think we've gone too far the other way. I also see girls being extremely mean to other girls if they don't look a certain way or dress a certain way. And I see boys who cannot mutter hello or speak to adults at all. I have step children and my husband does a poor job of training his kids to be respectful and kind to others. They have a high sense of entitlement without having to earn or even saying thank you. And they rarely give of themselves to others. They have poor manners at dinner and they rush through doors ahead of adults. I can't stand the way they talk back to their dad and he just lets them. I see their friends doing the same thing. They judge each other by what kind of car your dad drives and they are very focused on what kind of house you live in and what kind of job your dad has. Some brag about their dad's salary.Why would a kid even be told what his dad's salary is? Isn't that private? I really worry what our world is going to be like in ten years when all these kids are out in the working world. Can you imagine how it would be to have to work with these pretentious and self-centered manipulating people? Does anyone think that maybe the results of broken families has sparked this change in our culture? I think the main reason parents try to be friends instead of parents comes from the guilt thay have from ruining their kids family lives. And when they compete for the kids love and loyalty with an ex, it teaches the kids to play by the game to get what they want. But the rudenes from our youth doesn't just come from kids from broken families. So, how has it prevailed among their peers? It is sad that our culture is declining in this way. I'd love to hear more about some positive things in our world. Somewhere along the line, we as a culture/society got way, way, waay too caught up in material goods as a barometer of the quality of the person. This goes far beyond the "clothes make the man" idea of a few decades ago; it's now the "bling," the labels (I know there was a lot of it in the early '80s, but it has made its way down to younger and younger children), and the gadgets (which we didn't have for the most part in the "horribly deprived" decade of the 1970s..."What? You mean you survived elementary school without a cell phone OR an iPod??" LOL).
Yes, even 5th-graders show off their gadgetry at parties and look down on those who don't have the "stuff." Luckily, my daughter (so far) hasn't gone into the "But everybody ELSE (whine, whine) has it" mode. What are these junior Paris Hilton wannabees going to be like when they hit high school? College? The work force?
IMO, the "broken family" mantra is something of a cop-out. There were certainly broken families long before this generation came along, and although some of those children certainly played the game with their parents for material gain, I don't think it was nearly as rampant as it is now. And, as you point out, not all of the little snobs come from broken families. I blame aggressive marketing (even to young children) and just lax parenting for a lot of it. |
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